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Slow Science Fictions #23: Now Here's A Tale With A Happy Ending

2009-10-05T17:01:00.009Z

Posted on October 5, 2009

The final issue – relatively uncomplicated but with trademark oddball-ness – goes something like this: When the number 409 Zone 4 bus from West Croydon breaks down, two tourist passengers – Afro-American businessman Samuel L Poitier and New York script-doctor Mick Weller – take off on a woodland footpath and inadvertently cross into 3World in 4Time through a Zone 4 gap on a Surrey flyover. Addingcombe Hill leads them to the hometown of English superheroes, the Cosmic Crusaders, where, to the disruptive objections of Nasim Elmaz, the wedding of two past members – his brother Hussain Elmaz and Rebecca Schwaffer – is taking place. Addingcombe gives Weller the Robert Johnsons, and with good reason: Poitier is falling for local girl Michelle Jolly in spite of an enchantment on the village which dictates that Addingcombe can live and breathe only for twenty-three Thursdays one year in ten, and none of the villagers will ever be allowed leave. The pair of tourists have got themselves stuck in a weird comic book tale they can't get out of; or in a Brigadoon without the music. (Yes, the Key to the Universe and its nine-notched entry to the Heavenly Spheres of Reality has got mashed up with fucking Brigadoon.)

As author-in-residence in his own fiction – and at a side angle to it, also – Michael J Weller often pitched his Slow Science Fictions as both a celebration of- and lament for- admirable failure as a consequence of a refusal of the artistic compromises necessary for commercial success. Similarly, this artistic disconnect managed to find voice via a lineage of ideas partly inherited from popular culture: superheroes, parallel realities, angels, secret agents, and the battle between Good and Evil. With a magnetic Duke Of Hell sending moral compasses haywire, further tensions were evidenced in mental files wiped clean by corporate medication, or altered to believe in a benign privatisation; and characters scripted to be idiots who break the text that bound them to stupidity. Free will in the context of societal/religious duties, personal power as opposed to resignation, the writer and the written, a peace of Heaven with Hell and other elusive harmonies – Slow Science Fictions articulated a spirit of yearning for ennobling resistance and for the choices that set us apart even as we are compelled to draw connections in an attempt to link ourselves to one another. Mad to think that this series was also an entertaining, funny, funny-peculiar read.

32 A5 pages, £3 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #22: Kid Cartoons Parts I & II

2009-09-28T16:43:00.003Z

Posted on September 28, 2009

This, the penultimate issue of the Slow Science Fictions prose series, comprises Michael J Weller's customary re-refractions of self-mythologising deprecations, of socio-political reality and popular culture, and of the ordered disorder that is his measured tangle of fictions within a fiction.

Within: the ninth Guardian of Life And Civilisation is chosen, he is the cartoon character Hanthala with the spirit of young Iranian student Neda Agha-Soltan (the correction of Hanthala Neda's stunted growth can be achieved only with a final solution of peace, security and prosperity for both mideast Jew and Arab). Else-where/time: in the Billy Crombie Chiselwood College Of Dreaming Theme Park children should be thrilled by commodified health and safety regulated fear, but not scared shitless. Built in Florida by EarthCo, this theme park utilises technologies engineered by computer gaming and platform inventor Alpha Zee; most notably the iMager, a device which plugs into the frontal lobe of the player/visitor to make the Wellerverse real for them. With said device attached, retired policeman Jim Pannifer of Social Reality Earthtime 2018 returns to the Nibs writing group of 1997 to be introduced to himself as a character in Mike Weller's reading of his sci-fi serial. Offers Pannifer (in 1997 for real and in 2018, theme-parked virtuality): 'I would have left me out.'

Defiant to the near-end, Michael J Weller's writing continues to evince an oddly personal richness and piquancy that must contend with an ingrained against-the-grain narrative structure that's not exactly hoi polloi-friendly, but which offers a playful elusiveness that is both mysterious and singular.

40 A5 pages, £3 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #21: The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell

2009-01-27T18:22:00.001Z

Posted on January 27, 2009

The edgy immediacy of the Slow Science Fictions series continues as a melancholy chagrin further bulldozes into plot complications and sees both author and story unravel compellingly amid, amongst other heady happenings, a deconstruction of the plot of Brigadoon. This one might more appropriately have been titled Four Weddings And A Funeral: SSF #21 provides news of four marriages – included is that of American President Sam Poitier and celebrated author Michelle Jolly – and, in keeping with the central theme of recent issues (which revolves around the search for artistic identity and acceptance) offers a quasi-post-mortem of Michael J Weller's small press vocation.

A disillusioned, demoralised, rewritten Weller wrestles with a lack of validation, an abundance of self-doubt, and a sense that his writing is madness gone unchecked; but, conversely, still manages to vaingloriously recognise his salvation in a body of work produced well off the pandering path of artistic subservience. However, Weller is not immune from social expectations, still requires permission to be himself; and his bemused indignation of this self-satire is hilarious. Even Comics International reviewer Mike Kidson is to blame: Kidson had written that Weller is perhaps the most exciting British creator of comics at any level, but then insensitively disappeared from the comics scene. Ha! The cheek!

36 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Outcastes #1 & #2

2009-01-16T18:15:00.003Z

Posted on January 16, 2009

In issue #1 of this supernatural series from True Stories Comics: Found mysteriously fleeing a cave on the moors, amnesiac siblings Winter and Summer are soon struggling to endure a sinister orphanage bent on purging their wickedness. With nothing to aid their escape but a strong familial bond, an urchin pal and an apparition, it seems unlikely that the pair can survive a paranormal presence with malevolent intentions. In issue #2: The orphanage behind them, Winter, Summer and urchin pal Geo find themselves the travelling companions of Elias, an amiable street magician whose family have been lost to the plague. But while Summer's success with a tarot pack hints at innate talent for magic, it also reveals impending danger; and, too late, a hidden agenda is uncovered.

Thus far this is polished, decent fare of the Misty variety, and perfect for the early-teen or the inner-child. Though the rattling pace amplifies the cryptic storytelling and results in a dissatisfying lack of causality – which may irk readers impatient to be drip-fed answers to narrative questions of the mystery ilk – compensation exists in the form of neat conclusions to the adroitly realised suspense of each issue. Creator Tony McGee's storytelling fluidity is singular yet unselfconscious: with eerily stark black and white artwork, understated borders and no captions, panels inexorably spill past to lyrical effect. And even though the obvious quest of the main story arc is as yet unacknowledged by our aimless protagonists, already there is reason-enough to recommend this promising new series.

US format, 28 pages per issue, £1.75 each – from http://truestories.awardspace.com/

Matter #7: Weird Face

2008-11-25T20:52:00.002Z

Posted on November 25, 2008

Another ooh in creator Philip Barrett's impressive oeuvre, this tale of the unexpected revisits the theme of obsessive struggle previously explored in The Record and Blackshapes as it chronicles a successful artist's hapless search for relief from a mysterious face that relentlessly haunts him and his work. When catharsis fails and this malicious muse encroaches deeper into the artist's life, his locked-in despair edges him toward the ultimate release, but instead delivers something peculiar and disturbingly twisty: a close encounter of the face kind.

With brisk pace, deft characterisation and curious plot, Weird Face proves an engaging read, and is simultaneously funny and disquieting. Barrett's Tomine-like cartooning exudes warmth and sophistication, and his adroit portrayal of elapsing time and a thoroughly lucid world add considerably to one's enjoyment of this classy comic. Not perhaps possessed of the subtly understated complexities associated with Barrett's more intimate work (Typical, See You Later Then etc.), Weird Face is a crowd-pleaser – a satisfying story, satisfyingly told.

16 A5 pages for 2 euros/£1.50 /$3.00 (postage included) from http://www.blackshapes.com/comics.htm

Slow Science Fictions #20: War In Heaven

2008-11-21T18:28:00.001Z

Posted on November 21, 2008

Author Michael J Weller pumps enough whimsy into his odd-shaped fiction to gently bump the knobbly high ceiling of concept. Again, though, that sense of a perpetually inchoate central plot – fuelled no doubt by a prose writing informed by comic strip vocabularies and visual codes, which offers the presence of super-beings – albeit off-duty – but the absence of action-packed battle. In this one, menaced by the revenge fiction of Nibs writer Mike Weller, Michelle Jolly's impatient wait for her new dream of inspiration finally nears an end; a dewy-eyed Jim Pannifer must don tights if he is to maintain contact with local-writing-group-turned-amateur-dramatic-society; and the Council of God have been asked by the Archangels to forward nominations for the ninth Guardian to the Divine Assembly: Sappho makes the case for the Prophet Mahomet, Pythagoras for Charles Darwin, and Dante for William Blake, but who really could follow the eighth Guardian, Diando? (Diando: the composite Holy Spirit of ancient goddesses Ppamms, Dido and Diana, and of the lovely Jill Dando.)

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Trains Are... Mint

2008-10-09T18:29:00.002Z

Posted on October 9, 2008

Despite the plushy format and intellectualising-foreword provided by new publisher Blank Slate, this collection of Oliver East's self-published Trains Are…Mint comics vitally remains the work of a bemused underdog: the drawings are crude, colour-washed insinuations of urban localities, and East writes just like regular folks, too. The subject matter is congruent with this common man crafting: shops, pylons, factories, terraced housing etc. all come into view as East's good-humoured record of loner treks between Manchester and Blackpool maps well-worn haunts and the things we live a little distance from. It's uneventful stuff, which speaks of mortal tedium, but which seductively offers a creator at peace with his crafting ability and with his environment.

Hardback, £12.99 / $24.99 for 124 A5-ish pages, available from www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #19: It's The Power, Man

2008-10-08T17:21:00.002Z

Posted on October 8, 2008

In Social Reality Earthtime 2008 it is personalities not policies that celebrity culture demands in electoral voting markets. What voters don't know is that Sir Michaeal Spearate, the Duke of Hell, now operates in all ten Realities with his bent key to the universe, and that Samuel L Poitier – new Commander of the Cosmic Squad, Democratic candidate for the American presidential election and possessor of feminine upper figure – had been built and animated at Spearate's laboratories in the depths of Dis and is the intellectual property of global corporation Earthco; senator Poitier is a world leader born to be cloned for all continents and all nations in multiple simulations. Meanwhile in Britain, Conservative leader David Eton-Trifle stirs, and Prime Minister Gordon Scott's Presbyterian leadership style proves unpopular. (Come back Tony Blandford, all is forgiven!)

Just as the curtain closes on jostling for a Way Out West Wing, it opens again to reveal author Michael J Weller furiously tugging at the levers of his Wellerverse selves and at characters that are simply aspects of a fragmented personality: dead novelist MJ Weller confronts Mick Weller as he sells his home-baked, cock-eyed booklets at Camden's London Underground Comics; Michelle Jolly refuses to be written into the nasty, horrid, paranoid drivel of a nutcase – she is doing something else. Here the exploration of the author's troubled interior universe veers toward self-indulgence – his career dyspepsia and resultant creative-deprecation overtly communicated through dialogue too on the nose – but the narrative counters with some existential comment on the substance of what we do to confer meaning on our lives. (Hang in there, Mikes!)

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Sorry I Can't Take Your Call Right Now But I'm Off Saving The World

2008-09-30T17:14:00.003Z

Posted on September 30, 2008

Even with eyes set firmly in the shadow of one's critical cap it's impossible not to mine redeeming elements in every work of an anthology produced with charitable intent, and so it is with this uneven-but-worthy comics collection – all proceeds from the sale of Sorry I Can't Take Your Call Right Now But I'm Off Saving The World are destined for GOAL. Delivering work inspired by this title-trigger – the answering machine message of editor Cliodhna Lyons' late father when working abroad with aid organisations – the anthology offers a diversity of styles and subject matters.

Featuring the 1- to 8-page works of 30 creators, this attractive, polished volume delivers a veritable mix-bag of penny chews, with some chews inevitably tastier than others. Cricket In A Bag, by Catherine and Tomm More, briefly explores the impact volunteers in Kenya have on rescued street children, to uplifting consequence. In sedate parable Planting, Christopher and Ellen Ruggia touch on personal responsibility via a horticulturist who understands the conditions of the world and who has found her own tranquillity and order. Malte Knaack's The Visit moodily evokes the absence of closure in a broken relationship as exes spend a listless weekend together. 1963 pastiche The Living Proton, by Gar Shanley and Cathal Duggan, is an adroitly realised sci-fi superhero parody wherein our hero does battle in a quantum world's haberdashery realm. And in Jenny Linn-Cole's cosmic allegory Dog Man Saves The World three lolloping mutts have their delightful way with a familiar globe.

Also in the creator-mix are the chewy Joe Decie, Sarah McIntyre, Lee Thacker, John Maybury, Philip Barrett and others (including me; as masticatory as they come). And though much of the material is superfluous to the spirit of a title poignantly personalised by Cliodhna Lyons – and not intended to stretch the limits of creative endeavour – there is conscientiously crafted work on offer, diverting-enough to satisfy the undemanding reader, and gathered and bound into an uncommon publication with intent substantial-enough to eschew the dampening appraisal of criticism. Recommended.

96 A5 pages, £5.50 / €7, available from http://www.goalanthology.com/

Slow Science Fictions #18: 2001: After Space Opera

2008-09-06T10:38:00.001Z

Posted on September 6, 2008

Given to mood swings of elation and depression, young Dylan Wilson displays no ambition to establish a foot-hold in society despite his mother's encouragement. But Margaret has seen the difference in her son since the arrival of third year cultural studies student Hannah. Unfortunately, this beautiful lodger is not interested, and Dylan's obsession with his recently discovered copy of Seventh World War Comics deepens. The giant globe has been blown off the Earth Corporation's headquarters; the Eight Guardians of Life and Civilisation need to choose a new band of Cosmic Crusaders to fight in the eternal war between good and evil; an Angel is sent to earth to call the new team. There comes a sharp knock on Dylan Wilson's front door, but why bother to do anything? The working classes are being mentally prepared to accept a war that has been made up by a Prime Minister full of zap words and a catchy turn of phrase. Surely this was how Capitalism worked: packaging things to make you want to buy them. Isn't the world in a terrible enough state?

Malleable courtesy of its non-linear time structure, the Slow Science Fictions series firmly positions 2001 story Fanzine Fiction into its loose continuity. No isolated vignette – indeed, the original publication proved of seminal significance – it is reproduced here with a contextualised introduction (which resonates with the series' dream-logic illeism) that nudges the story onto the tracks of author Michael J Weller's personal pilgrimage into the analogous Wellerverse, adding further to its emotional truth. Written with comic strip vocabularies and visual codes an ingrained characteristic, Slow Science Fictions #18 in part examines the metaphysical bubble, subjective existence and universal foibles of the power-fantasy fan, of the escapist and the fantasist; and to borrow from Oscar Wilde, uncovers the mask behind the man. But whether dreams feed our courage to carry off ordinary, everyday challenges, or convince us to sidestep them, SSF #18 is a thoroughly fun read that will have comics-readers, particularly, smiling from start to finish.

40 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #17: From Eduard Mogilowski's Old Typewriter

2008-08-06T17:11:00.002Z

Posted on August 6, 2008

Social Reality Earthtime 1938: top-level demons and monsters of superhuman power are using Hitler and the axis powers to destroy Christian civilisation with a planned thousand-year Third Reich of militarised paganism. Satan's Spiritual Director on Earth – Sir Michaeal Spearate – sculpts with living flesh (using the blood of dead Jews) and emits a sick and unspeakable goat-fish smell of sixteenth-century Billingsgate as he recruits crop-haired youths with the promise of immortality – jobs for life; and beyond! But Sir Michaeal's enemy, the Nobodaddy (aka God Almighty), sends a beautiful Angel to earth to contact the Cosmic Crusaders – Heaven is at war with Satan, and they are to plan the logistics of defence in the known world.

"You will have no memory of this," says Professor Fergus McQuigley to the Cosmic Crusaders, "but it will be written in your unconscious mind for you to recall in years to come." Similar could be said of Michael J Weller's Slow Science Fictions series as its non-linear saga often lodges shapeless-as-memory in the brain. However, here in #17 the story From Eduard Mogilowski's Old Typewriter (Mogilowski: the series' pulp magazine writer, character and creator of The Cosmic Crusaders) provides a focus more in keeping with conventional narrative-models, and offers immediate satisfaction. With echoes of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Hellboy, it's an entertaining read; one possessed of a worldly and otherworldly eruditeness.

40 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Him And Her's Smuggling Vacation

2008-07-21T18:51:00.003Z

Posted on July 21, 2008

A facetious mosaic of lives entangled in the environment of drugs smuggling, Jason Wilson's Him And Her's Smuggling Vacation chronicles the seemingly ill-fated attempts of a bickering couple of opportunistic Brits to transport a tonne of found-cannabis from Spain to England and dodge both gangsters and customs in the process. With a title that combines an Americanism with the idiosyncratic grammar of a British colloquialism, and with a storyline that echoes English sit-com double-length specials (when, more often than not, characters are sent abroad for exotic intrigue) but told in the European style of humour cartooning, this attractive volume inevitably struggles to find a fitting tone, though is possessed of a gleeful energy.

The writing, at times, lacks guile – clunkily omniscient captions prove particularly off-putting – but the story is structurally sound-enough to withstand frequent interruptions to suspense by inane dialogue, and relief from a script that struggles to be funny is offered by pockets of sober insights and facts on the smuggling business – fuelled by crime consultant to the book, Tony Spencer. Ironically, this absence of laughs is accentuated by quality humour cartooning that outperforms the script and raises expectations. Smuggling Vacation, then, offers a decent story impressively illustrated but encumbered with a gag-deficient humour. Best light-up for this one. (Demotivational Syndrome, anyway, otherwise requires years of dispiriting toil to develop!)

80 full-colour A4 pages for £7.98. Check availability at www.smugglingvacation.co.uk

Manhole #3

2008-07-03T17:46:00.002Z

Posted on July 3, 2008

Contemporary relationships are explored in Pet Rock – the featured issue-long strip of Manhole #3 – as an assortment of males orbit the lives of two backstage rock-chicks: the placid Bea and the freewheeling Carrie. At first kindred spirits, the intimacy between the pair soon disintegrates when Carrie's boyfriend mysteriously disappears and she refuses to own up to her frustration and unhappiness. There exists here a sense of an emotional and authorial gap being filled by the daydreams and aspirations of cartoonist Mardou. Though she creates not so much a romanticised reality as an idealised one, there remains an absence of the kind of sustained conflict that fuels the dramatic conviction of a writer. Furthermore, what Mardou writes seems so defined by her reading choices that this work smacks of simulation. As a result, things like the bittersweet ending feel hollow and unearned, and the story has shape as it goes through the motions but possesses no satisfying thesis. The telling, however, is fine-tuned, the cartooning fluent and assured, and the scripting fluid and engaging. The issue is perfectly enjoyable.

40 A4-ish pages for $3/£2, available from http://usscatastrophe.com/itlives/comics/

Gazebo #1

2008-07-03T17:44:00.001Z

Posted on July 3, 2008

In a session with his therapist a young man struggling for emotional sustenance tentatively examines his psychological survival. Writer Liam Geraghty, in collaboration with Matter cartoonist Phil Barrett, employs a warm, good-humoured touch that sidesteps complexity and analysis in favour of throwaway pathos and a bland, more universal appeal. Comprising a series of mostly-symbiotic, mostly-slight one- and two-page strips that revisit resonant episodes in the protagonist's life (and, in the strips Wank and Slight Retort, that inadvertently revisit works by Dan Clowes and Adrain Tomine) this light brushing of the surface of poignant subject matter is delivered via the Clowes-inspired structure of fractured narrative, and proves a disciplined debut for Geraghty. Barrett's cartooning, as ever, is exquisite; his style possessed of a quiet humanity. Highlight of the issue is the visceral Nightmare, and Boy Campers – wherein our protagonist accidentally asks a pal's sister if he can sleep in her.

20 A5-ish pages for €3, available from www.blackshapes.com/

Contraband

2008-06-14T19:28:00.001Z

Posted on June 14, 2008

The antithesis of po-faced comics with inferred depth – which sidestep the writing process courtesy of the tolerance and inherent appeal of this seductive medium – Contraband insistently exhibits meaning and aspires to provide a substantial reading experience. However, stubbornly over-scripted missteps hijack this intent as author Thomas Behe uses characters illustratively and makes few concessions to authentic-sounding dialogue: all speak with the flat voice of a writer working strobe-like through his fine-tuned gripes and bite-size philosophies. Taken in isolation, these ill-humoured asides and acerbic convictions prove interesting, but in the context of Contraband's non-linear narrative, they add a desultory, disorienting clutter that obstructs the flow and momentum of the story.

The conceit which forms the fulcrum of this sci-fi speculation on a dystopian near-future requires little suspension of disbelief: violent mobile video abuse is the new contraband as the boundaries of privacy are blurred in a tech-savvy society that utilises portable digital media to capture and distribute reality torture-porn. When self-styled citizen journalist Toby is forced to hunt down a female activist sabotaging the globe's most controversial cellphone channel – Contraband – his search leads him 8mm-like into the ugly reality of a voyeur underground populated by profit-hungry youths disconnected from any sense of repression or conscience, and with insatiable thirst for celebrity; the progeny of the liberalisation of social taboos, and of our You-Tube culture of instant gratification.

Though the execution is flawed and the economical cartooning style of Phil Elliott and Jim Sharman delivers a homogenising processed-sheen (amplified by overindulgent line-spacing on the computer lettering), Contraband succeeds in imparting with eloquent vitriol the author's moral outrage and frustrations, which inevitably topple into misanthropy; Behe's despair at the decay of civilised society and at the culpability of human nature is palpable. But as the work unwieldily articulates his justifiable anger, one can't help but be soured to the all-pervasive cynicism of the superfluity of opinions and to the relative absence of redemption in the story. Conversely, a glass half-empty is no bad thing when said glass contains vile-tasting medicine that, ultimately, is of benefit. Contraband, then, is prescribed reading.

148 A5-ish pages, $12 from www.slgcomic.com

Last Bus

2008-06-08T19:00:00.001Z

Posted on June 8, 2008

The dull routine of a pedantic bus-driver is the focus of this week-in-the-life vignette published by Cardboard Press. The route of the No. 230 double-decker through an unnamed urban cityscape allows promising creator Patrick Lynch adeptly demonstrate a fluid storytelling craft, while the familiar dialect and antics of passengers offer clues toward identifying its Irish location. The glimpse of drama offered by a denouement on-the-periphery isn't quite enough to counter the lulled doze prompted by the subdued rhythms of the work, but compositional know-how and grey washes add substance to the breezy cartooning style, and the creator's firm grasp of sequentialism make this unremarkable comic a diverting-enough ride/read. Ultimately then, Last Bus is a technically sound comic with more city-centre than emotional centre. Do stick your hand out, though.

24 squared A4-ish pages for €3, available from www.patrickl.net or www.cardboardpress.com

Slow Science Fictions #16: (His) Story Of English Superheroes

2008-06-04T17:15:00.001Z

Posted on June 4, 2008

In part the writing of Michael J Weller is characterised by the seductive refrain of worn-out superhero mythologies, which accrue into passages of mystical, mantra-like transcendence. In this spirit, Slow Science Fictions #16 is as much incantation as it is the retelling of the origin of The Cosmic Crusaders/The Invincibles and of the history attached to their creation and development. Here, in a break with the typed-prose presentation of the series, Weller provides hand-lettered texts and illustrations that reintroduce the visual dialect of Space Opera, and which dip into the key moments and milieu in the evolution of his English superhero team. The fluid, organic cartooning style manages an affecting luminescence due to its serenely innocent quality, and as the book's focus deviates from delving into the continuity associated with overlapping reality tunnels and elevating tensions between the temporal and the divine – towards superhero trope-laden pleasures – this beguiling issue should prove the most accessible to date for a comics audience curious to sample Michael J Weller's particular utilisation of escapist fantasy.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #15: Tomorrow People Mixdown

2008-05-27T17:13:00.001Z

Posted on May 27, 2008

A cyberspace data-encoded cipher, which mixes a Hebrew tetragrammaton and Kabalistic numerology, is solved by the Man-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes; his reward: a Bent Key to the Universe and access to the minds of the Guardians Of Life And Civilisation. The Wellerverse turns, and the Weller of this verse drinks himself silly and couldn't give a flying fart if nobody enjoys his slow fictions. Who exactly then is planting themselves into the hearts and minds of the Cosmic Squad, exploiting their doubts and confusions? The Duke and Duchess of Hell, or Weller himself?

Comics, television shows, websites and computer games featuring four Islamist superheroes – the Pioneers of Tomorrow – have been launched, and their packaging dazzles the youth of Syria, Iran and Swabiastan. Seduced by the glamorous depictions of the supermartyr team, conditioned youths are eager to play their part, gain celebrity, and see battle lines of cosmic war drawn between Jihadist new dreamers and the Cosmic Crusaders. The magical ancients call upon the martyrs to sacrifice life on earth for eternity in paradise.

Michael J Weller is up against it, and here, as he flashes the world a gimp of displeasure and continues to convert to creative matter the alarming stuff constantly streaming in from the environment, I'm reminded that the inability to properly "filter" incoming or internal stimuli and information sources has been linked to psychosis, and that the same processes that lead to madness in some, may result in extraordinary creativity and inventiveness in others. Weller possesses clarity of cognisance but writes like a madman. The result is a story of uncommon shape and oblique pertinence.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Albedo One #34

2008-04-28T18:22:00.002Z

Posted on April 28, 2008

Another cluster of speculative fiction courtesy of Ireland's answer to Interzone. Via the short fictions of global authors, though, Albedo One asks its own questions, and here confidently musters entertaining response.

The 2007 Aeon Award-winning Angelus, by Nina Allan, is a sophisticated, masterfully executed piece of writing with unobtrusive conceit and literary aspirations, which allows a character-driven narrative uncover the relationship between two men once caught in the orbit of the same woman. Absent love and longing also fuel Alice & Bob by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles: through a series of self-mythologizing correspondences, two lovers-with-a-twist describe civilisations in extremis as a cosmic kink continues to randomly transport people about the planet, upending forever the longevity of interpersonal relationships and imposing on already-transient lives a philosophy of futility.

In Nassau Hedron's Siren an unspoken complicity exists between the many incarnations of a female seductress and the malevolent male General; automatically fulfilling their roles – her love directs his homicides through ages of social unrest – an unexpected arrival offers readers the prospect of upheaval and conflict, but frustratingly delivers it off-page. Incarnation has further use, this time in The Supplanter by James Steimle, wherein a modest Skeleton Key-like tale presents a struggling family in need of shelter – cue the remote shack and spooky occupant. Equally slight is Rebecca S Pyne's tongue-in-cheek Boneless, in which a faithless wife gets her comeuppance via a mobile lump of hellish phlegm.

More tongue-in-cheekery is provided by William R Eakin in LOOB: Love Only Oily Bodies. Here, a fluctuating, flitting intent exuberantly skips through a satire that entertains with a self-discovery prompted by the arrival to Hicksville of the substance-fuelled hedonism of Ibiza. Music as hedonism and, ultimately, solace, is in part explored in Larry Taylor's Isle Of Beauty, wherein earth finds itself at a loose end when faced with apocalypse. And The White Knight by Devon Code agreeably displays a touch of The Book Of Illusions as, in a bid to confer meaning on his life, a twenty-second century scholar nurtures an obsession with the role of chess as a motif in the film Casablanca.

There are captivating reviews too, a striking cover by Jane Chen, and Bob Neilson interviews Raymond E Feist, author of Magician and The Riftwar Saga. All in all then, a rewarding-enough issue, with a depth fit for a delving.

60 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95, available from www.albedo1.com/

Fugger

2008-04-23T17:41:00.001Z

Posted on April 23, 2008

For the anonymous creator/s of Fugger the bath of promise grows tepid, but the surface scum this publication filters through comics, prose and parody-pieces provides a good-humoured misanthropy and the kind of philosophy of bemusement familiar to the non-conformist and the cynically depressed. Peopled with disillusioned characters out-of-step with society, struggling either to fit-in or to drop-out, the strips of Fugger are underdeveloped and offer little crafting know-how; however, afflicted flashes of potential are in evidence, the cartooning is functional-enough and a voice that engages the adult ear bolsters one's reading stamina. The ragged prose of The League Of Super Bitter Scientists is equally at odds: a high concept – get God back for all the suffering in the world – is awkwardly delivered and devoid of guile; but in funny satire The Fugger Book Club a lyrical prose style is aided by an un-structure which presents four random pages of a book written in Dublinese – to persuasive effect. Ultimately then, Fugger's glaring flaw is a lack of storytelling polish, but with a satisfying focus and disarming, off-beat appeal, it provides agreeably diverting entertainment.

24 A4 pages, free. Email: fugtheworld@gmail.com and/or download the PDF at http://osheamedia.com/comics.html

Slow Science Fictions #14: Hope Not Hape

2008-04-23T17:24:00.002Z

Posted on April 23, 2008

Revisited here is the 70s' Social and Political Reality of the DisUnited Kingdom, as authoritatively touched by the meticulously researched contra-history of Mike J Weller. Wog workers fight wog bosses; tactics learned in Northern Ireland are employed by police to subdue protesting shop stewards; a dark cloud of racial tension is ever-present. With no work, no shops, no cheap housing, and with energy-banks exhausted by an oil crisis, the UK has been reduced from an imperialist empire to a rat-infested Euro slum. Albion resembles Dis, and the Duke of Hell, Sir Michaeal Spearate, recognises an opportunity to breed a class of people who know little and care about even less.

There's no hazy nostalgic glow to this 70s, its legacy the epoch of an apathetic and gullible society. But then, expectations are resentments under construction, and after a grand start as regular Oz magazine graphix artist and rep as England's answer to R Crumb, obscurity followed for Captain Stelling, one of the Weller characters in Slow Science Fictions. "Did I simply reach my creative peak at the age of twenty-five and finish?" asks Stelling. Weller continues to pick at his personal odyssey – and at the publishing world that abandoned him – trying to make order from the disorder that is his careering through creative life. It's a fascinating surrealist self-portrait embedded in fantastical elaborations.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #13: Lucky For Some

2008-04-08T17:52:00.004Z

Posted on April 8, 2008

Like an equation consisting of complex narrative elements, the potted evolution presented in Slow Science Fictions #13 clarifies the intricate workings of the Wellerverse and thematically focuses the author's eccentric struggle for creative identity. Found here are fictions within a fiction, storytellers within a story, where writer and written sit face to face and the written becomes the writer, and where ambition and desire are irreconcilable for a writer thwarted by his own universe. Get writing or get written was the Shawshanked phrase introduced in Mike Weller's seminal work, Space Opera, but here again this sentiment is agreeably undercut with a sense of the author's stubborn fatalism as the first-person narrative voice wrestles with a personal odyssey driven by irrational forces and odd, obsessive desires, but with a niggling perception of success that is conditioned by yearned-for approval; or not, as the case most likely is – as ever, any attempt to fix Michael J Weller's prose series to convenient definitions is no more than a reductio ad absurdum of the work. What's certain is that it remains a joy for me to watch this mad series accrue.

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #12: G'wboe, Or The Woman-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes

2008-03-15T18:50:00.002Z

Posted on March 15, 2008

A piece of esoteric tongue-in-cheekery provides this twelfth instalment of Michael J Weller's Slow Science Fictions series with a good humoured opening, but the resultant giggles are soon smothered in a sombre fug of nightmarish oddness as the unnatural success of author MY Jolly – the series' JK Rowling-like figure – is darkly investigated. The bizarre-o-meter reading goes off the scale when Jolly is seduced by the cunt-tinglingly mysterious Duke Valentine and exposed to the salacious Love Museum, where a deviant technology chillingly screens other people's dreams: cocks are taken in the mouth; a black girl rubs herself off with both hands as boys spurt semen in her hair; an old gash is moistened. The unearthly edginess and sinister quality further intensify as Weller pointedly puts Jolly through hell to realise her writing aspirations, and though there is some convolution-overload toward the end as story fabric flips and folds a la David Lynch, SSF #12 ultimately proves a captivating if insubstantial reading experience.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Mister Amperduke

2008-02-16T11:06:00.005Z

Posted on Feb 16, 2008

An epic story of revenge, redemption and Lego, Mister Amperduke is the graphic novel from The Shiznit's Bob Byrne, which reintroduces the world first glimpsed in the pages of MBLEH!, and continues the cartoonist's penchant for crafting the kind of wordless narratives familiar to readers of his 2000AD work. However, with its 150 pages of story-without-words, which predominantly consists of a bludgeoning 16-panel grid per page, this tome at times offers a reading experience not dissimilar to holding one's tongue, and rather than further develop the adult themes and subtext briefly explored in MBLEH!'s original Amperduke six-pager, Byrne targets the AVP generation with standard-issue schlock-horror, albeit dressed curiously and crafted with unerring grasp of sequentialism.

With Mr Amperduke hospitalised, a cruel grandchild bent on genocide surreptitiously introduces a monster to the miniature city of Amperduke's basement, a place inhabited by sentient creatures with Lego-men attire. The hardcore carnage of familiar genre territory follows, Amperville's Trumptonshire-like serenity replaced by much hi-octane action and violence as its citizens struggle for survival. For Byrne it's a return to the gratuitously unpleasant abuse of cute, bug-eyed cartoons with vulnerable, child-like characteristics, and despite delusional claims for greater substance in the book's foreword, the human interest aspect of the story is relegated to book-ends and fails to elevate a narrative hued with defective personality and caught in the gush of opened arteries. Yep, the kids'll love this to bits!

160 A5 pages for £11.95 / €14.95, available from clamnuts.com.

Slow Science Fictions #11: Convenient Truth

2008-02-10T19:39:00.000Z

Posted on February 10, 2008

Addingcombe solicitor Sally Harper makes the case for the defence of Sadar Saddubin's killer, Frederick Burrell: it's an epistemological mystery, with intellectual derangement a consequence. Equally baffling to the authorities and, in particular, to Detective Inspector Jim Pannifer, is the whereabouts of Glenford Gates – eye-witness to the murder of Mayor Scourge, and chief suspect – despite the fact that Gates features regularly on EarthCo tv, securing his place via televised adventures as one of four Cosmic Crusaders!

Meanwhile, death-dealer in Futures markets, Sir Michaeal Spearate, plans to use his lab to make a black candidate for the Democrats, and President Jack Flash is advised to face an inconvenient truth head on: EarthCo are the Fossil Fuel Lobby, but by claiming to reduce production of essential fuels to scarcity levels, commodity values for EarthCo shareholders will rise (private gain, public loss). Spearate will not be satisfied until the last tree has been logged down and the planet has melted into a fossilized, empty desert.

Mike Weller continues to serve the reader well with his capacity to take the facts and manufacture from them an inventive narrative that corresponds with his world-view, and wherein the familiarity of the dystopia presented prompts a sense of urgency. Whether or not a particular economic system contributes to the destruction of the planet more significantly than another, one can't help but approve of Weller's demonising of capitalism and, in general, his portrayal of politics and religion as conduits of evil. Funny, disturbing stuff.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Asthma

2008-01-20T19:41:00.000Z

Posted on January 20, 2008

A remarkable offering from Tepid creator John Hankiewicz (and publisher Sparkplug Comic Books), Asthma is a handsome collection of short, intentionally evasive material that at times is indecipherable due to staccato sequences of non sequitur panels, but which is never impenetrable. Mercifully, despite its transcendental moments, it remains anchored to the push and pull of the universal stuff of regular narrative; it simply shows us familiar things in unfamiliar ways.

There's resistentialist struggle in the mesmerising Amateur Comics as a pathologically distracted man fails to get to grips with Feng Shui – a theme briefly revisited in the unnerving Epictetus. There's poignant, literate memoir in Where's The Wire, McCollum Park/Millennium Park, Lot C and Westmont Is Next. The Kimball House is part interrupted memory and part memory process; its attempted capture appropriately abstract as the narrative sparks in random directions. Dance is an oblique, funny, visually eclectic glimpse at the ill-fitting dimensions of the male/female relationship (or a particular male/female relationship); Jazz an elusive, surrealist pageant that frustrates and intoxicates and which, curiously, feels occupied by the watchful presence of the author; and in Martha Gregory the machinery of thought hums beneath some bemused reflection and the struggle to reconcile an inner life with physical events.

With andante storytelling amplified by obsessively applied textures – the crosshatch fill particularly impels one to linger – and with, at times, aloof tone, incongruity and difficult intent which mischievously obfuscates and purposely provokes a dislocated emotional response, Asthma's cumulative effects won't leave everyone breathless. Those reaching for inhaler though will have found the reading experience demanding but fun, and satisfying in a contorted kind-of-way.

108 A4-ish pages, $17 from www.sparkplugcomicbooks.com

Candy Or Medicine (Volume 2)

2008-01-18T19:45:00.000Z

Posted on January 18, 2008

Predominantly the work of a jumble of disparate US-based creators, Candy Or Medicine is a quarterly mini-comic anthology with no pretensions – nor clear vision – which features a higgledy-piggledy mix of good-humoured strips, gag cartoons and sketches. Offering evidence of varying degrees of drawing know-how – name contributor Matt Feazell at the developed end of the spectrum; cover artist Emily Puccia at the naïve end (but both providing equally beguiling work) – and neither particularly clever nor witty, this happy accident of a shorthand collection still manages a casual persuasiveness which, ultimately, succeeds in sparking the odd smile. Best-in-issue is Liza Miller's delightful two-page strip in which a deceptively well-drawn stick-figure has inventive fun with a scarf.

16 quarter-sized pages, $1.50 postage-paid via www.candyormedicine.com

Slow Science Fictions #10: Character Avatars

2008-01-13T11:43:00.000Z

Posted on January 13, 2008

Mick Weller's Alteration to the New Reality changed him from underclass benefits claimant into successful middle-Englander. He'd sold his soul, and with it went the integrity of the Cosmic Crusaders: with their exploits adapted to ill-conceived computer games and a dubious television show, passing fad status could but follow. Elsewhere, a viagra-enhanced David Wilson realises he has compromised his academic independence as he orgasms with a call-girl; the marketability of the Asian mug of Muslim Crusader Hussain Elmaz is disputed; George Bridger enters Hannah Watts through the side of her panties; and Dylan Wilson's deep depression returns.

The Wellerverse of 3World in 4Time is further marshalled and fine-tuned with Mike Weller's idiosyncratic style as the examination of his obsessions continue and a mixum-gatherum of private and public worlds are filtered through an individual brain; the writer's own Space Opera museum of recent pasts and near futures. In Slow Science Fictions #10, amid bunching plot strands, character-related reversals and adjustments to moral compasses, a plaintive tone – which you imagine goes on quietly existing by itself in your absence. There's a gentle intimacy here, and melancholy, which engages emotionally, and which provides satisfying read.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #9: Billy Crombie And The Crock Of Shit

2007-11-06T18:40:00.000Z

Posted on November 6, 2007

Chosen by the Guardians Of Life And Civilisation to write a story about an unnamed orphan, financially troubled Michelle Yvonne Jolly is the one to christen Dreamtime Reality's schoolboy magician 'Billy Crombie' and shake up children's books. The Guardians help set up Nibs writing group in Addingcombe to facilitate Jolly's writing for a world that doesn't see value in imagination, and her character soon leaves behind the five steps he occupies between the twelfth and thirteenth floors on the Block One stairwell of Sinkmoor. Billy, you see, had a fantastic dream and catches a tram to the Chiselwood college of dreaming for new generations of Cosmic Crusaders, where gay old commie-atheist Professor Fergus McQuigly is to introduce him to ten-plus levels of reality and the Key to the Universe. But all is not rosy: the Great Mortido and his legions are trying to get into Chiselwood to reach higher realities, and Billy's hidden genealogy holds a dark, dark secret.

'What a crock of shit,' laughs the Guardian Aristophanes when confronted with Jolly's story, and one gets the impression that Slow Science Fictions writer Mike Weller speaks directly to the reader. But then, Weller's authorial presence is always in evidence; more so here as he gleefully but intricately twists his elaborate universe around Rowling/Potter-like mythology: the Somnambulance Special transports passengers from Dreamtime to Social Reality; the waking world is inhabited by Getreelies (from the expression 'Get real'); the Rowling figure is the chosen one, her writing fuelled by divine intervention. Trotsky once wrote that the revolutionary party is the memory of the working class; like Space Opera before it, Slow Science Fictions is, in part, the memory of our culture's anti-intellectual age, when individuality is diminished as ridiculous numbers of people identify with some popular philosophy or distant spectacle or some well-marketed person. What a crock of shit.

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #8: A Voice Inside

2007-10-06T09:39:00.000Z

Posted on October 6, 2007

Ultimately the voice inside is that of author Michael J Weller, but at the funeral of the last Cosmic Crusader – Fay Fairweather – 3World In 4Time Mike Weller finds himself sat next to his detective character Jim Pannifer, listening to Rev Ian Beaumont recount an early story from Crusaders mythology – that of the Angel of Powers – in which the voice of an angel speaks inside the heads of Fay and the other Crusaders, signalling the advent of a force of great paranormal good in their world and, more specifically, the Otherworld.

Another voice inside is that of Sir Michael Spearate, the Satanic Whisperer, able to manipulate every thought, word and deed of his chosen-puppets for the purpose of directing the world into conflict, destruction and apocalyptic terror. His is the voice inside the Earth Corporation's ladder of organisation, the voice inside a backwards-Biff Scourge – now an inverted skinhead and white man in reverse – and a voice on-the-inside (Brixton prison) speaking as a sinister preacher to inmate Pugh, with lips/voice out-of-sync.

Hmm, this is a prose series out-of-sync with conventional storytelling and, at times, even with itself. Here, there is a mood of fatalism to the near-pathological insistence of Weller's narrative rhythms as a glimpse is provided of a tit-for-tat conflict between MJ Weller and his fictional self, and again as this latter Weller – in the funeral congregation – is confronted with not just a superhero team in extremis, but values too, and – fantasy reverberating into the realm of reality – this Slow Science Fiction series itself. Upending stuff.

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Albedo One #33

2007-10-01T17:51:00.000Z

Posted on Oct 1, 2007

With the ripples from the splash caused by last issue's impact still lapping at my brain, the still waters of Albedo One #33 signal a return to – if not more settled, then less startling – genre fiction, well-crafted and likeable, but a little stagnant all the same despite a cluster of suicide-touched tales. Only Simon Kewin's affecting, chilling post-9/11 science fiction Live From The Continuing Explosion offers depth enough for drowning.

Live deliberates on the strategic rationale of a suicide bombing viewed in cosmic slow-mo by the whole planet as a self-contained time-dilation seals off the explosion in a hundred metre diameter sphere, dictating that the still-occurring atrocity continue to relentlessly unfold with excruciating clarity, never allowing it be confined to history. Indubitably designed as a condemnation, the story's complexity inadvertently tips proceedings in favour of suicide bombing with-media-savvy, its apotheosis of the bomber-as-artist better suited to extremist instructional booklets on the al-Qaeda method of martyrdom than to War On Terror propaganda. Still, thought-provoking stuff.

Also on offer is standard-issue, suspenseful dark fantasy and intimate science fiction: in Michael Mathews' A Trail Of Stars Swirling a drowned daughter returns home reanimated to self-deluded parents; in Andrew McKenna's Barrelhouse a street urchin is ruthlessly conditioned by a malignant cult; in Matthew Sanborn Smith's Marissa Marissa the organic separation of conjoined twins signals mankind's next evolutionary step; and in Anil Menon's A Sky Full Of Constants the possibility of tweaking fundamental constants causes a philosophical disagreement with the universe which impacts the lives of two Indian physicists.

Surprisingly, humour dominates the remaining fiction, which is hit-and-miss fare but with a sensible brevity: in Blonde On Blonde, by Geoffrey Maloney, a taxidermied Jayne Mansfield really should have stuffed opposing candidate Marilyn Monroe in the presidential contest; Oisin In Templeogue, by Ed Wood, is a superficial up-dating of a popular story from Irish mythology, retold to the beat of a night on the rip; The Genie, by S.K. Twyford, sees a well-endowed goblin leave a trail of misfortune for a reluctant wisher; and – you won't believe it – Ticket To India, by Aongus Murtagh, is One Foot In The Grave set in an ageist society with compulsory euthanasia.

The business of writing/publishing is discussed both in the Severian column and in purposeful interiews with Geoff Ryman – author of Was and Air – and Sam Miller – author of On The Brinks and The Redemption Factory. Famous Monsters provides exceedingly readable reviews of speculative fiction, and the mixed-mediums iconography of Mario Sanchez Nevado haunts the cover.

64 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95, available from www.albedo1.com

The Sound Of Drowning #6

2007-09-04T17:13:00.000Z

Posted on September 4, 2007

More eerie and disquieting tales from maverick small press creator Paul O'Connell, whose idiosyncratic fusion of the surreal and the mundane are given expression through monochrome photo panels which employ the language of comics, but which exist at a side angle to evocative montage. With a skewed perspective and minimalist narrative, this is very much art-house territory.

Six strips feature. In Maskon a husband-with-a-fetish reveals himself by donning a female latex mask – to upending consequence. Dolphins On Film is a mockumentary charting the celluloid splashes of the beloved angels of the sea. The ill-fitting but eloquent Giants Of Jazz #2 is a straight, affectionate potted-history of Duke Ellington. The manic, esoteric Oh No, It's Gallo! presents the idea of a David Lynch-directed sitcom based on Vincent Gallo's publicity stunts. In Ambulance an art-fag pines for her ex and discovers that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And in Baby a Ray Milland look-alike suffers the consequences of not insisting on a receipt when parting with a score for a black-market bairn.

A work of art is not about anything; it is the thing itself, says Irish novelist John Banville. The Sound Of Drowning #6 is certainly a thing itself, and yes, a work of art, too. But, crucially, it's also entertainment, and much like its TV equivalent – Chris Morris's Jam – will have you jazzing to the bleak tone of a life-support machine that marks the steady fading of your day-old baby daughter.

40 A5 pages, £1.60 – check availability at www.smallzone.co.uk

Andy Luke's Comic Book #6

2007-08-26T20:02:00.000Z

Posted on August 26, 2007

Mostly a collection of sequential doodles from the margins of Andy Luke's mind, some appear little more than thumbnails for more substantial comics works, while others resemble the worked-on primitiveness of Outsider Art, but all are suffused with intent: we should know that victim status is unacceptable; that personal power can be used to combat world woes; that tucking ourselves into cosy lives is to sidestep responsibility. Luke seems to be highlighting society's inherent culpability as well as that of the usual suspects.

Yes, it's an unapologetic rant, targeting both the corrupt and the apathetic alike: Bush, Blair, you, me, Moloch – we are all guilty of what Jean-Paul Sartre termed bad faith. Thankfully the moral certainty with which Luke delivers his sermon is made palatable by a warmth fuelled by self-deprecating humour, and while occasionally the gap between panels is too wide for the average cognisance to bridge, the resultant sense of abandonment – of being lost – proves agreeably abstract in a David Shrigley kind-of-way.

20 A5 pages, £1, check availability at http://andyluke.livejournal.com/

Bullet Proof #1

2007-08-25T11:02:00.000Z

Posted on August 25, 2007

This is the first handsome volume of Bulletproof Comics' anthology series, presenting new work by an accumulation of pro and semi-pro UK comic talent, and featuring a genre mix of fantasy, adventure and humour. Production values suggest that this US-sized glossy means mainstream business, and with a striking cover design (albeit with overly-busy illustration by Lee Langford and Klaus Belarski) and polished artwork throughout (particularly lovely is the scratchy-lined, Alfredo Alcala-like inking style of Jon Haward on Sideburns), there's little to deter the casual browser from parting with £2.50 for eighty pages of comics. And to further entice this page-flicking punter-in-waiting, The End is thrown-in a couple of times when a Next or To Be Continued would prove more to the point. (Count five complete strips.)

Ranging in length from one page to twelve, eleven conscientiously crafted strips are offered, with – in the main – neat, lucid storytelling the rule. Nigel Kitching's and David Hankin's lively Occultus rummages through Judeo-Christian baggage to realise its otherworld of flaming swords, its indigenous hierarchy and tree of eternal life. This is technically flawless stuff, and boasts a structural know-how; as does Snowstorm, an intriguing, cinematic story of small town Canadian lives impacted by a seemingly unprovoked act of violence, written by Paul H Birch, pencilled by Michael Perkins and inked by Garen Ewing. Curious superhero team Armageddon Patrol feature in the wonky Friends Like These, by John A Short and Simon Ecob: the patrol act as a superpowered special ops squad during the Vietnam War, to vaguely unsettling effect – it's either unpleasant misjudgement or finely-tuned cheese. And in Alan Grant's and Alan Burrows' Funguys, two annoying time-travelling mushrooms crash The Last Supper and buzz off Jesus and pals, to hilariously profane consequence.

Like most anthologies, this one dips and lurches, and inevitably some subject matter appeals-not to my jaded tastes, or some storytelling fails to satisfy my particular demands. However, while Editor-in-Chief and publisher Matt Yeo recognises the need for talents to emerge fully formed if the anthology is to realistically compete against a mass of always-available mainstream material (both past and present), the space allowed for those still in need of development is vital for the well-being of underexposed UK creators. And though spoiled-for-choice readers these days are inclined to easily lose patience with the second-rate, Bulletproof #1 provides quality enough for the mainstream comics fan and, with adult sustenance found elsewhere, for the small press enthusiast attentive to the demands of their inner teen.

US format, 80 pages (B&W interior), £2.50. For further details: http://www.bulletproofcomics.co.uk/

Slow Science Fictions #7: Frederick Burrell Possessed

2007-08-14T18:04:00.000Z

Posted on August 14, 2007

Refounded Communist Party member Hannah Watts is convinced that Nazi thug George Bridger should have been strangled at birth, but relief teacher Margaret Cooper sits on him anyway and he comes inside her. Meanwhile, Professor David Wilson and son Dylan continue their lustful pursuits of Hannah; new world order capitalism carries on its destructive way; and something shadowy has got into historian, Frederick Burrell…

Once a brilliant scholar, but now jobless, homeless and living amongst an assortment of refugees and asylum seekers as he shifts from Salvation Army hostel to squat, Frederick Burrell has wound up on the 'wrong' side of the global division of rich and poor. It's the society he's compelled to live in, you see: Englishmen like him are ashamed of expressing nationalist pride and sentiments. What has the pursuit of democracy, freedom and prosperity achieved? Muslim settlers and a woman's right to wear the total burqa of Swabiastan, that's what! Is it any wonder Burrell finds himself following prostate-troubled imam Sadar Saddubin into the Gents toilet of the Drum And Billet public house, in his hand a sabre knife from a lost Afghan war, in his head the voice of Sir Michaeal Spearate, Duke of Hell?

A clear-sighted Mike Weller continues to track and backtrack the lives of his disparate group of characters, immersing them in a melting pot of psycho-sexual/political tongue-in-cheekery, emotional repression and demonic pathogens. Though not conducive to building a sense of momentum, the fragmented structure of the narrative remains compelling and agreeably off balancing, and enhances the quirky vitality of a dizzying, brain-adjusting read.

32 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #6: Cliff Of Albion

2007-07-15T10:43:00.000Z

Posted on July 15, 2007

As directed by Mike Weller in Space Opera, Dylan Wilson's fanzine script prepared 1970s frockstar Starman Jones as successor to Professor Fergus McQuigly, Commander of the Cosmic Squad. However, Jones isn't in the eternal cosmic plan of the Guardians of Life and Civilisation; in the hidden world of Dreamtime Reality, Cliff Richard is due another reinvention: the Anglo-Indian parochial Elvis copyist – and poet laureate under the Christian Democrats – has been chosen by the Guardians as new Commander of the Cosmic Squad. The Guardian's Divine Assembly meets to discuss what the Divine hand can do upon earth, and, in Common reality cognisance, comprises silvery-white ancients; amongst their number: Pythagoras, Dante, a co-opted William Blake, and the royal and televisual goddess Diando. When a dream takes Cliff to Neptune to meet with the Guardians, a messy business awaits: just whose side is Satan directing in the Eternal War? East or West?

As ever, summarising an issue of Slow Science Fictions requires a cognitive flexibility and coherent succinctness that is beyond me. Did I mention that in his laboratory in the eternal city of Dis, Micheal Spearate grows a new body – the fleshware of a Blackman – for dead Nazi Mayor Biff Scourge? Or that Professor Fergus McQuigly's life extension at the Kid Doctor Clinic comes with a penis transplant? Or that when William Blake speaks in the Otherworld his voice can be heard through the conduit of a little red-breasted English robin singing its song to an extremely touched Earthling holding a handful of milllworms light years away? Though abstract and surreal, Mike Weller's ever-expanding universe is a meticulously structured soup of culture and untethered imagination, with mischievous shocks aplenty and a gravity difficult to resist. Where else would you find Diando, a goddess possessed of the presence of both the dead princess Diana and tv presenter Jill Dando?

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Your Round: Tequila

2007-06-25T17:08:00.000Z

Posted on June 25, 2007

Four good-humoured stories about drinking and drinkers from Olive Press Comics, Your Round: Tequila is a conscientiously crafted collection which provides both a mainstream polish and a mainstream restraint.

Mike McLean and Declan Shalvey's Dublin-set Hustle mixes off-duty lap-dancers, liquor and deception to diverting if unremarkable effect, its noir-ish tone and deftly realised, anticipation-provoking set-up elevating expectation, albeit inappropriately; the modest pay-off coloured flat as a result. Also Dublin-set, Bob Byrne's Say A Prayer For Me chronicles a gradually souring night-on-the-piss with the lads, and in its text-heavy, Clowes-like, conversational six pages, delivers a disarming, deceptively intimate, slice-of-life vignette. The under-occupied, over-economical, computer-aided panels of James Hodgkins' I Drink, Therefore I Am boast a sophisticated cartooning style and effectively employ a visual first-person narrative to reveal the cynical wit-tinged, beer-goggled observations of a barfly as-played-by-Orson-Welles (those goggles are required for Hodgkins' cover, by the way); and Shalvey's two-page chaser Know Your Limits just about justifies its inclusion courtesy of an inventive panel which succinctly captures in one go a whole night's drink-prompted activities.

Though, over all, lacking ambition and too insubstantial to be satisfying, the sound story-telling craft and sure-footedness of Your Round: Tequila offers entertainment enough to seduce the undemanding reader. Get it down you!

32 US-size pages, £2.50/$3.50, available from www.yourroundthecomic.com

Slow Science Fictions #5: David Wilson's Sinking Heart

2007-06-13T17:42:00.000Z

Posted on June13, 2007

David Wilson's persona is being chipped away. Taking the professoriate has reduced his charisma and glamour as a free and footloose lecturer, his bedding of female students supplanted by administrative duties for a university that has become an alternative to government training and community boot camps. Education, you see, has been corrupted by a lethal mixture of theoretical absurdities and left-wing socialist ideology: the new university prospectus and website resemble an advertisement for sanitised mulitculturalism.

Meanwhile, Choat – Military Memorabilia shop owner and leader of the South London cell of the Social Order Movement of Europe – is rumoured to be more interested in getting his male members into bed than onto the streets with bricks and Molotovs. At first, white, ultra-right, young working class activist George Bridger considers this a slur against Choat by a bunch of liberal fag peaceniks, but naked male wrestling and group masturbation jerk-offs at the boys-only weekend assault and survival course prompt something of a rethink.

No, David Wilson's is not the only sinking heart in Mike Weller's fifth, particularly dense issue of his Slow Science Fictions prose series: disillusionment abounds. Even Mike himself – in 3World in 4Time – dresses shabbily in black, a pair of deeply set, tired and hooded bloodshot eyes squinting from behind tinted, bottle-thick spectacles. In Weller's Bleasdale-relevant jigsaw puzzle – cut from the fabric of society – there are no sky pieces; but, to borrow from French poet Paul Valery, the void shows through. Loving it!

36 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #4: Graphic Novel

2007-04-25T18:25:00.000Z

Posted on April 25, 2007

Two generations after virus 3W4T transferred to human beings – in Social Reality Earthtime 2054 – Aminah Coppe grows into goth-angel, the first of Croydon's superheroes to develop avian skills; he answers his calling and prepares to fly to Neptune with the Cosmic Squad. From secret underground Golgonooza in 2001, Lieutenant Commander Hussain Elmaz watches his young team of Cosmic Crusaders reach Neptune on his palmscreen; this is the same Hussain Elmaz who years earlier was an original member of the All-New Cosmic Crusaders Of 21C – that was the sub-header on Mike Weller's small press covers storytelling nineties adventures of the team. In 2003 at the Antarctic World Justice Centre, a hooded figure – Pugh, possessed by dead Nazi, Biff Scourge – spray paints 'Death To Crusaders And Zionists' amid demonstrations heavy-handedly suppressed by police under the management of multinational EarthCo's General Choat. (It was the Choat character Mike Weller used in his cast of comic villains for graphic novels.) A remote voice suspended in time and space – that of the Great Mortido, Sir Michaeal Spearate, the Man-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes – approves of Pugh's actions.

In 1999, Addingcombe writing group The Nibs are thrilled by Mike Weller's mysterious stories about 1930s Cosmic Crusaders and about Mike's fictional self who lives in a made-up place called Penge. Weller, not satisfied merely with role of catalyst, was a cartoon character himself once – Captain Stelling – active in the Otherworld, he tells the group. Three years later, Creative Comics first New Cosmic Crusaders prestige graphic novel is amongst the comic books Mike gives to the Kid Doctor Clinic charity shop; the GN is bought by Hussain Elmaz, who'd been fictionalised by Weller to be a Cosmic Crusader character in the book. In 2007, illeism-convert John Robbins reviews Mike Weller's newest book, Slow Science Fictions #4, and describes it as narrative origami (sic) (sic), suggesting that it flips and folds fantasy and reality, providing something oddly shaped and fascinating in its shuffled, overlapped regression/progression of story and character. 'It's an osmotic process that works,' says one of the characters in this 3World in 4Time universe writes Robbins. 'There's an Otherworld in these pages.' Robbins can be a grandiloquent eejit at times, but he's spot-on here. (Welcome to the MWarvel Universe!)

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Albedo One #32

2007-03-14T18:23:00.000Z

Posted on March 14, 2007

Placed 8th in the 'best magazine' category at the last Hugo Awards, Albedo One's inexorable rise to the top gains momentum with this issue's expertly assembled and fluid mix of speculative fiction. As one premise ideal for comment on the human condition is directed elsewhere by a writer's particular focus, another story is imbued with this ambition. As one writer fries a father on the first mouthful of mains-wired cutlery, another conjures a utopian consciousness. Seven stories feature:

Unnatural, by John Hogan, is an evocative World War I morality play-with-a-twist. With British railway guns finding their range and infantry advancing, a mysterious runner is blasted from front to second line of German trenches, but suffers ill-effects only when flung into the graveyard of the village of Saint Martin du Sacre-Coeur – now re-sculpted by the weight of British ordinance. Even in these unnatural times, the runner's pleas for help from two German comrades seem out of the ordinary.

Blink, by Ruth Nestvold, is an amusing 'distraction'. Being a science fiction writer (social, no doubt), Tess is forced underground by the fundamentalist government of the New Republic of Texas. But the Resistance is weakening and Tess has writers block – without her reason for being, she is dying quietly before her partner's eyes. If she could only tap the love of her man, write the story of their struggle, then New York Times headline 'Science Fiction Writer Breaks Through Curtain Of Silence' could be hers.

Times Winged Chariot, by Nicola Caines, is affecting magic-realism. A mother believes that aliens (probably Orkan) have covertly altered her biology: she is growing younger. Her opportunity unimaginatively grasped, the years pass. So do mother and daughter: the latter toward old age, the former toward a childhood where even paedophiles have their uses for a libidinous kid. But where is this reversal to end? Is daughter to witness mother expire, a raw, red, pulsating lump, no more than the guilty leavings of an illicit abortion?

Katrina's Kostumes, by Stephen Owen, is Roald Dahl creepy but with a substance-lacking CGI-ness permeating its House Of Wax horrors. When an inebriated father loses his three year-old on a busy city street, it occurs to him that the boy has been lured into a costume shop by a mannequin clown in the store window. The ensuing search takes on nightmarish proportions as father is overwhelmed by the shifting display of costumes, which grows more menacing, more animated, the deeper he delves.

Homo Incognito, by Will Sand, is sterling science fiction with metaphysical bite. When a burnt-out journo makes some effort to revamp his nondescript life by investigating a revolutionary company rumoured to possess an extraterrestrial think-tank, he is seduced into non-action by the promise of a life full of possibilities, without limitations or consequence. However, first he must enter a physical state more confining than a nightmare. What's he to do, this man so unused as to be unknown?

Danny's Inferno, by Brian Stableford, reworks principles related to Heaven and Hell to enchanting, potentially corrupting consequence. A couple of eloquent primary school pals – one is dead, the other, our narrator, is living – share matter-of-fact conversation at this dead pal's funeral. The deceased explains: "In Hell, everyone is the age they were when they'd committed enough sins to be irredeemably damned." He's seven. And our narrator is wickedly philosophical about his own chances of eternal happiness.

Counting Tadpoles, by Uncle River, is a smart, incantational parable. A student discovers another green world on an ecological field study in Las Cruces. Aided by a polymathic hermit with irreverence for a government which conditions its citizenry to be docile, the student receives lessons in ecological degradation, the sacrifices required to become a sovereign individual, and demon wars in a wilderness haunted by an indigenous culture with its own maths. Is this student to be woken from his consumer lifestyle?

Also on offer behind Alexander Kruglov's fine cover art: in-depth book reviews by Andrew McKenna which are both lucid and intimate, letters of comment, and Dev Agarwal interviews a candid Christopher Priest, biographer of Olympian, Sally Gunnell – "80,000 words in a month. I had just spent three long unpaid years writing The Prestige and was desperate for some cash." A sound issue then, reliably measured to appeal to the palate of the discerning genre fan, and with a smack of earthly relevance that lends some satisfying weight.

64 A4 pages for £3.95 / €5.95 - available from www.albedo1.com

Slow Science Fictions #3: Addingcombe Calling Inspector Pannifer

2007-03-10T20:07:00.000Z

Posted on March 10, 2007

So close to retirement, the last thing that ageing inspector Jim Pannifer wants is a hate crime perpetrated by Satanists, or tit-for-tat exchanges between the right-wing Social Order Movement and Islamic extremists. But, in an Addingcombe graveyard, a white cat's decapitated head, thirteen black candles and a twisted key with nine notches are found, and two headstones desecrated with black paint now bear the scrawled name of Mayor Biff Scourge – the "F's" in the shapes of swastikas, the "O" crossed like a Nazi wotan symbol.

Yes, a suit of respectability may cover Mayor Scourge's tattoos, but even occult seduction to the Otherworld and alliance with M'wboe (the Man-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes) can't suppress a racial prejudice founded in his days as a 1930s Nazi Blackshirt. When a polemical bullet is administered to his brain and, subsequently, an imam in Addingcombe – Sadar Saddubin – is found dead with a sabre knife up his jacksy, inspector Pannifer's desire to write an Agatha Christie style crime novel must simmer patiently on the backburner.

This is another state of the nation reconstruction fuelled by fantastical elaboration, which contains magpie-snatchings of found socio-political reality and popular culture, all charged with a supernatural current guaranteed to weird you out. Roses open for Christmas, a two-headed entity orgasms, and Grungehill Comprehensive ex-pupil Glenford Gates stammers. The push and pull of Mike Weller's prose is lent hypnotic clarity by an omniscient third-person narrative, and this Slow Science Fictions series is of- and out of- this world.

28 A5 pages, £2 inc p&p, available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Slow Science Fictions #2: Hannah Watts

2007-02-07T18:08:00.000Z

Posted on February 7, 2007

In televised auditions to form a new four-strong superhero team, comic reading geek Dylan Wilson and hundreds of brave contestants re-enact past battles of the Cosmic Crusaders – against the Duke of Hell, Michaeal Spearate and The-Girl-With-Blanked-Out-Eyes. With phone lines open to vote, Dylan is convinced that university student, Hannah Watts, will see him differently as a superhero. But Hannah has changed, this sexy, beautiful girl no longer hidden behind a shrewish and caustic exterior of left-wing radicalism. As Dylan's mother observes, "That girl's been fucked; fucked good, by the looks of things."

Yes, the student's new, well-earned sophistication is the product of an intimate liaison – Dylan is not the only male caught in Hannah Watts' orbit. No, there's Jinkerman, the seemingly-flush, gold card-carrying leader of the Refounded Communists; there's George Bridger, the intelligent working class lad aligned with right-wing fanatics, the Social Order Movement (he'd been warned about going on a liberal Humanities course); and there's Dylan's professor father, David, who had always felt the urge to go from long-term pedagogic grooming in one-to-one seminars with Hannah, to quick fuck in the lift.

Daytime suds froth aplenty in this, the second of Mike Weller's Slow Science Fictions, which, typical of the creator's prose stories, is caught in a captivating tantalization of recycled anticipation. But is it about harnessing a particular political philosophy to pander to gregariousness? About how we're victims of our own needs, and in the absence of social rewards, our culture of instant gratification demands that we go elsewhere, adopt other 'beliefs'? Even a neo-Nazi white boy on his own at university finds black and Asian friends during the first few weeks of term. What does it all mean? You decide!

32 A5 pages, £1.50 - available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Loserdom #15

2007-02-04T13:56:00.000Z

Posted on February 3, 2007

"It's kind of a portrait of the global landscape as it reaches a crisis level of homogeneity as filtered through the experience of two women," says Loserdom interviewee and Fugazi singer/guitarist Guy Picciotto of the short film 'Chain'. Loserdom could be said to mine similar territory: the socio-political concerns of its creators Anto and Eugene – and their laments for places where "character and soul no longer remain" – are subtly woven with disarming sincerity through their own comics and writings and, by proxy, through the symbiotic work of contributors chosen to maintain this weave. There's a commitment here; charged, one feels, with a rectitude that won't be shackled by the ever-narrowing parameters imposed by law.

Amongst the material presented this issue is the enchanting The Story Of Loserdom, a potted history – ten years in the making – of the zine's development from ragged freesheet to desktop-published booklet. In Anto's Places That Were But Aren't Anymore, clubs, squats and cafes are recalled from the pre-apartment swank era, and specific spliff-friendly atmospheres, piss-poor pints, atrocious toilets and gigs by bands with unlikely names – Bilge Pump, Holochrist et al – are yearned-for with equal degree of rose-tint. Integration sees Eugene lost in translation as he forlornly latches onto the odd English phrase overheard in the conversations of fellow passengers in this lulling, lyrical description of train journeys in Amsterdam. (His is the bike with two locks at the station.) And Anto's cycle-log charts the ups and downs of a trip from west to east of Ireland – a thoroughly enjoyable read despite the dirty headwinds, the stop-start drizze and frequently banjaxed bikes. ("I managed to straighten Peadair's derailleur to some extent, but it will need a slight bit of work tomorrow with tools that I forgot to bring…")

Also on offer: a roundtable discussion with Irish band The Redneck Manifesto, recollections of a sweaty year-and-a-half spent in New Orleans ("A person delivering food for a living on a pushbike can save up enough to buy a house and still be an alcoholic"), the vented spleen of a teen in-the-thick-of-it, thoughtful slice-of-life and satirical comics, and zine reviews of titles diverse enough to introduce audiences to a Revolutionary Anarcha-Feminist Group, the Dublin Bicycle Messenger Association, and to issues related to anti-civilisation, green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism. A holistic balance, then, that's good-natured, personal and quietly constructive, Loserdom is a zine with infectious warmth and sensibly worked conscience.

68 recycled A5 pages, £2.50 – available from www.loserdomzine.com

Falling Sky

2007-02-04T13:51:00.000Z

Posted on February 2, 2007

Provided a perfect-bound, glossy treatment by publishers, Scar Comics, Falling Sky is a bold choice for their first graphic novel release. Relentlessly downbeat and humourless, its inherent cynicism makes few concessions to comforting entertainment, and with a resourcefully crafted but functional artwork – photo-sourced and treated with a simplifying outline, a murky two-tone and chalk/charcoal effect – it could scarcely be considered a safe-bet, commercially. However, once one settles to the inappropriately other-worldliness of glowing figures and white blood, it is difficult to resist the impetus of this well-crafted story.

When first-time kidnapper Rijuta loses her accomplices to an SAS hit-squad bent on the extermination of kidnap victim and banker, Charles Pearson, she learns that he is a man with knowledge of a covert government operation triggered by an impending apocalypse. An asteroid twenty-five miles in diameter hurtles toward earth and only the world's elite has been surreptitiously allocated safe-passage to underground shelters. With twenty-eight hours to impact, Rijuta turns bodyguard as Pearson dodges bullets in a last-ditch attempt to deliver both to safety.

Essentially an alchemy of conspiracy and cataclysm, Falling Sky is a taut action-chiller told with no-nonsense lucidity and deliberate pacing, which employs a time-lock narrative device to suspenseful consequence. Though its central characters are betrayed by a plot-driven focus – Rijuta, particularly, is underdeveloped and under-explained – and a false note is struck by an unconvincing sub-plot involving Pearson's malicious business rival, the persuasive, conscientious crafting effectiveness of creator Benjamin Dickson demands that one is captured by this refreshingly quip-free and, ultimately, disquieting read.

US size, 84 glossy pages, two-tone interior, £7.99 – available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Tales Of The Sidewalk #2

2007-02-04T13:50:00.000Z

Posted on January 13, 2007

This is mental. Here, creator Jon Williams openly suffers from post-traumatic stress as a consequence of the reception to Sidewalk #1, and is startled into a panic of compulsive self-indulgence which manifests in this book-length whim, a devotion to a post-mortem of that debut issue. There is a half-hearted struggle to develop characters and situations introduced in #1, but ultimately, Williams' hellish reality anchored to our own proves a high concept in dire need of a plot. Consequently, soul-selling demon reality-journalist 'D' and his sidekick critic-construct, Jerome, are utilised merely as mouthpieces for their creator's comic-related angst.

That this post-premiere issue wreckage proves curiously mesmerising is not to condone its lack of writing craft. (See the review of Sidewalk #1.) But Williams' scratchy, fluid cartooning speaks of innate talent, and one can't help but be disarmed by the ambition of a creator with a vision currently above their ability, whose enthusiasm fails to will into existence a semblance of writing know-how or guile. It's ragged stuff, perilously close to eccentric folly, but with an endearing mixed-air of fatalism and resilience, this issue leaves me intrigued and alert to signs of Jon Williams defiantly crawling from the wreckage.

US size, 24 glossy pages - available from www.createtodestroy.com

Slow Science Fictions #1: Mike Weller's Cosmic Crusaders

2007-02-04T13:49:00.000Z

Posted on December 9, 2006

Five attendees of a night class on 'Understanding Comics' each share an identical dream about being a cosmic-crusading-costumed team fighting bad in the world. Years later the collective dream is all but forgotten when four of the five cross paths again in Croydon. But this reunion is no accident: the Duke and the Duchess of Hell have declared war on God's Earth in the three spheres of Common, Social and Political Reality; in nearby Addingcombe, local democracy is being complicated by powerful developers; elsewhere, committee-prompted alterations fuelled by marketing strategy are made during the gaming adaptation of characters and situations from Space Opera, a small press book which details the history of the UK's first costumed superheroes, the Cosmic Crusaders. The Croydon four – Elaine Clark, Becky Schwaffer, Hussain Elmaz and Peter Piggott – have been chosen by the Guardians of Life and Civilisation to be the New Cosmic Crusaders.

"We have a powerful wish to be something super human," comments Elaine Clark in this origin issue of the New Cosmic Crusaders. This perhaps is the thematic fulcrum of the story: the desire for personal power to combat resignation and victim status, and refusal to accept limitations. As usual, resonant concerns lurk beneath author Mike Weller's superhero trope-laden work, where parallel realities meet in confluence: the hijacking of all that is popular in society by crass commercialism, capitalist bulldozing of our culture, the substance of a response to corporate momentum; and as ever Weller succeeds in crafting a gleeful read while quietly adding or removing things familiar to both our reality and our reading experience. There is a dizzying meticulousness here, too, and endearing complication, and if comics readers are to rest from exclusive consumption of the word-ballooned panel, the sure-footed prose of Mike Weller's Cosmic Crusaders provides the perfect substitute.

40 A5 pages, £2 - available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

True Stories #2: Island

2007-02-04T13:48:00.000Z

Posted on October 26, 2006

A grand folly, this, from Tony McGee, which throws all the shapes of a metaphysical examination of a couple of anguished lives, but just lacks sufficient exposition or dialogue or inherent analysis to achieve the kind of complexity that makes a story this brooding really involving.

The teenaged Gemma holidays on the remote island of her father – a broken man, detached and struggling for emotional sustenance. Conversation is brief, silences protracted; there is something not right with this relationship. Gemma retreats into fantasy, her father into reliable depression, but there is no escape: a sinister fog gathers on the horizon; it's moving their way.

Ambitious and downbeat, the narrative of Island lacks impetus due to the relative absence of a physical conflict, but with a beautifully conceived grimness, hypnotic rhythm, unearthly atmosphere and striking visual clarity, there is much to admire about this tentative yet devoted meditation on guilt.

Flip-side strip Isle is flimsy and conventional in comparison to its elusive neighbour, but boasts a polished story-telling which is technically faultless. Here, McGee's Sisyphus-like tale is superbly realised by the fine-tuned artistry of Chris Askham, to diverting, enjoyable-enough consequence.

56 A5 pages, £2. Available from http://truestories.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

The Shiznit #3

2007-02-04T13:47:00.002Z

Posted on August 7, 2006

A full colour, pocket-sized glossy with a print-run of 15 thousand, The Shiznit is a polished anthology of comic strips distributed throughout Ireland and, courtesy of some bong, bikes and gaming advertisements, is free, gratuit and frei to the general public. With mass-market ambition then, editor/publisher Bob Byrne abandons the uncompromising approach of Mbleh! and despite the occasional processing sheen, instead manufactures a tone of subversive-like mischievousness.

Amongst the satire and the stand-uppishness, the social and political commentary and the gag-fuelled funny, this issue's standout strip is Brian Kenny and Bob Byrne's Count Curly Wee. A biting expose of Irish attitudes to immigrants and the footholds allowed them, it's cleverly presented as pastiche of the newspaper strip of the same name, complete with rhyming couplets. Paddy Hickey's disarmingly simple/genius Web Pharmacy sees an over-the-counter exchange given the SPAM treatment, to hilarious effect. (Some "Vigagra" (sic) with your lozenges, anyone?) Harvey Richards: Lawyer For Children offers wit on top of its durable, funny conceit, and Caught Short by Phil Barrett is another perfectly realised (minor-) gem from an ever-reliable realiser of gems.

There's much else on offer in The Shiznit #3 (from Bif and FrankP, Ruben Bolling and Paul Rainey, from BrenB, Cian Hallinan and Robbie Bonham), and though at times gags seem familiar and are hindered by deliveries that lack invention and originality, it's a derivativeness that won't register with its target audience, and which fans of humour comics probably won't mind either. And anyway, who could resist the bastard child of Oink! and Viz? It's no money well spent.

32 A6 glossy pages, colour interior, free - available from www.clamnuts.com

Daddy's Rules

2007-02-04T13:47:00.001Z

Posted on July 29, 2006

When a leafy, suburban tranquillity is disturbed by Carole Morton - the cruel teenage daughter of newly arrived neighbours-from-hell - it comes as no surprise to our ten year-old narrator that her mother begins receiving prank phone calls. One egged-car and stolen Kylie-disc later, the anti-social behaviour escalates and polite protest fails to remedy the situation. There's only one thing for it: closed curtains must be opened – it's time to introduce the Mortons to the Mansons!

The first title from V1 Comics, an imprint of Aeon Press, Daddy's Rules is crafted by Bob Neilson, writer of The Big Fellow and Father Further Investigates, and by artist Carlos Devisia. Resembling a Misty pastiche for the most part – "Your headmaster will hear of this!" – it retains a light tone even when awkwardly toppling into slasher-genre fare, and may prove an agreeable, if unremarkable, distraction to those new to – or not yet jaded by – standard-issue shockers.

US size, 32 pages, £2.50 / €3.50 - available from www.albedo1.com

Tales Of The Sidewalk #1

2007-02-04T13:46:00.001Z

Posted on June 13, 2006

A first issue devoted to establishing a world and a protagonist through exposition so sloppy it verges on soliloquy, essentially the reader learns that the time is whenever o'clock and demon reality-journalist, the conscientious 'D', sells souls to the infernal masses from an independent soul shop situated in a hellish reality anchored to our own.

The frenetic style lends proceedings a skateboarder/graffiti-artist sensibility that I'm too old to appreciate, an occasional absence of dimension/solidity hampers the clarity of some bustling layout, and sequentialism is hindered by a thickly jagged framing of panels. That said, creator Jon Williams' fluid cartooning talent is much in evidence, and a Beetlejuice-like visual kookiness keeps earnest ambition in check.

Writing-wise, the undisciplined, stream of consciousness-like approach has its exuberant charm, but betrays a lack of story-crafting know-how. A more considered structure and tighter scripting applied to the development of future issues should provide the polish that helps realise the glimmer of potential this debut issue offers.

US size, 24 glossy pages - available from www.createtodestroy.com

Mike's Yellow Fever

2007-02-04T13:45:00.001Z

Posted on May 6, 2006

Here, a short story allied to a flurry of press cuttings provides effective socio-political commentary from conscientious craftsman and agitator Michael J Weller, author of 'S Club 7 versus the Anti-Capitalists' and thirty years-worth of outré small press titles.

Mike wakes one morning to a world painted in primary colours and inhabited by yellow-fill people short a finger on each hand. With the tweet tweet of birds on repeated sound loop, he pours a tea-looking brew, wears Harry Potter coke-bottle-bottom glasses over bulging white eyes, and can't seem to think straight. Mike too is caught in the grip of yellow fever.

This allegory concisely highlights with Textliner-luminosity our commercially arbitrated, dumbed-down relationship to a world in which the response to global homogenisation is dictated by an increasingly synthetic value-system. It's also a fun, thoroughly delightful read.

20 A5 pages, £2 (inc. p&p) – available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Harriet Staunton: A Victorian Murder Ballad

2007-02-04T13:44:00.000Z

Posted on May 4, 2006

M J Weller turns his attention to the Penge murder mystery of 1877, chronicling the sad life and death of Harriet Staunton, and the dramatic trial of her accused killers: her husband Louis and his mistress Alice Rhodes; her brother-in-law Patrick and his wife Elizabeth. It is the compelling tale of a fasting girl of weak mind, but of financial providence, who escapes the damnable company of a harridan mother and unkind sister for the precarious interdependence of an ill-advised marriage. Her husband is soon loving and living in criminal intercourse with the housekeep; her brother-in-law painting under Harriet's patronage; and she confined to bed, a convenient concealment facilitated by her deteriorating health.

With sympathetic sobriety, Weller depicts a troubled soul caught in the momentum of mental illness, driving herself and others to despair. Hollowed-out by a progressive emaciation fuelled by an eating disorder, Harriet Staunton's disease of the mind sucks all semblance of selfless Christian charity from those caught in her orbit, and imposes on carers a fatalistic acceptance and philosophy of futility. Ultimately, the resultant deterioration of their collective conscience, the complicit abandonment of responsibility, and the nineteenth century's lax notion of accountability relating to the treatment of the mentally ill, allows both the demise of Harriet and of Thomas, the wizened being that was her son.

For those eager to bask in the resilience of the human spirit, there is little comfort here in Weller's fact-filled prose (and insinuations?). However, the bond of immovable lovers – an expression of the solidarity of the four accused – offers redemption of sorts as it frustrates the tactic of defence counsels to trade off degrees of guilt. Here then were four accused of the same crime, but unwilling to fall out of love. "How can love be a mortal sin," asks the manipulative Patrick Staunton early in this penetrating book. Other questions too are posed, specific to the case and otherwise, but Weller sensibly offers no conclusions. 'Res ipsa loquitur,' he might say as he points to the evidence. The thing speaks for itself.

A5 pbk, 176 pp, £6 (+ £1 UK, £2 Europe, £3 airmail USA p&p) – available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Lost Property #2

2007-02-04T13:43:00.001Z

Posted on December 1, 2005

A mix-bag of three and four panel newspaper-style strips (or properties, the appeal of which are, presumably, lost on press editors), this attractive, landscape publication produced by Dave Evans is not remotely satisfying, but offers glimpses of the skilful writing and cartooning ability of some small press talents eager to thrive in confined space and just maybe secure a foothold in the world of strip syndication. Indeed, as one who has always preferred reading about short newspaper strips to reading the actual things, for the most part I can detect no absence of professional quality in this work, though the poignancy of a Lynda Barry, the hilariousness of a Max Cannon, or the originality of a Jesse Reklaw, is sorely lacking.

Working best (and best workable) in this unflattering, non-complementing accumulation are Mark Woodland's Mike The Monk and Gervais Edwards: Psychic Defective by Clements and Stonebridge, both of which operate from absurd situations that are inherently funny. Comicana Miscellania by Berridge and Harper plays inventively with the artist/creation relationship to diverting effect, and the text-piece by Ed Berridge, a potted history of the short comic strip, provides a concise overview of its chronology. Overall, Lost Property is worth a casual goo; there are polished cartoonists aplenty in this collection, and capable-but-hindered scripters satisfied to deliver sorry gags and flat adventure. No different to the regular newspaper fare, then.

56 A5 pages, £1.50 (+ p&p) - available from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lostproperty

Ghost Of A Doubt #1

2007-02-04T13:42:00.000Z

Posted on November 26, 2005

A collection of gentle, poignant strip-vignettes by creator Greg O'Brien, this publication offers perfect entertainment for the small press enthusiast not yet jaded by first-person narratives wistfully caught in life's momentum and primitively drawn with endearing lack of know-how. The universality of its themes – realised through the juxtaposition of captions which speak of the author's inner turmoil, and pictures which illustrate this turmoil in a humorous, self-deprecating way – succeeds in sparking a connection with the reader. No, there's not a lot to get excited about, but with sure-footed rhythm, adroit, neat storytelling, and curiously effective and affecting pencil-shaded panels, Ghost Of A Doubt is pleasantly beguiling; which, like, is a bit annoying really.

16 A5 pages, €2 - available from ghostofadoubt@hotmail.com

Feed America's Children

2007-02-04T13:41:00.000Z

Posted on November 2, 2005

When the motivational-speech of superhero Major Impact is received with disdain by a refuge of underprivileged children weary of cliché platitudes, he has cause to examine his role as defender of a society that is in dire need of re-invention. The anguish prompted by the Major's newfound sense of powerlessness attracts the attention of his fellow super-beings, and with his hero-ing affected to the extent that lives are lost, they get pro-active in their pursuit of a solution. Fortunately for them an adversary emerges in the form of a malevolent entity (and eater of souls), whose presence in the Major's dreams proves more than just manifest and latent content…

Combining 'classically dexterous storytelling skills and post-modern delineations', writers Paul H Birch, Clark Castillo and Mel Smith manage to craft a coherent narrative, which delights in melodrama, but possesses the vague pull of subversive undercurrent. With over fifty contributing artists – including Norm Breyfogle and P Craig Russell, Garen Ewing and Neill Cameron – cohesion is achieved through a homogenized style, which mercifully favours storytelling clarity over inventive layout. It's slick, glossy malarkey with the odd over-inflated word balloon, and big heart. All profits go to a charity for America's homeless children.

US size, 52 pages, colour interior, $4.99 - available from www.feedamericaschildren.com

Streets Of Dublin

2007-02-04T13:40:00.000Z

Posted on October 15, 2005

In Dublin City creator Gerry Hunt pastiches hip Irish film and TV drama to realise the familiar narrative arc of Streets Of Dublin, an attractive graphic novel deliciously designed and coloured by Toenail Clippings co-founder BrenB. Reading like an abridged adaptation of a misjudged screen-thriller that uncovers the grubby underbelly of the Capital's inner-city crime scene, it's not without its own ersatz charm, even allowing for the failure of its predominantly poker-faced parody to fully register.

When a wannabe urban-cowboy, the teenage Johnny, befriends gung-ho vigilante and part-time scrap-merchant Bernard (the father of Garda sergeant PJ), little do they realise that their lives are to further overlap under more trying circumstances. In his efforts to pay money owed a Triad splinter group, Johnny's older brother attempts to rob a pub, but in the process scuppers PJ's undercover infiltration of a gang of heroin traffickers. Inevitably things go from bad to worse, and only Johnny and Bernard can save the day.

Jammed with junkie scumbags, hard-nippled slappers and gun-wielding 'chinks', the heightened reality of Streets Of Dublin of course lacks the organic quality of In Dublin City, but retains the permeation of Irishness and the exquisitely rendered city buildings. With jarring figures replaced by old-style draughtsmanship of the Jim Baikie ilk, artwork is impressive; and with dubious transitions, plot-convenient coincidences and shambolic finale, the script perfectly employs the tropes specific to that hip Irish film coming soon to no cinema near you, sans parody.

60 A4 pages, colour interior, square-bound, €9.95 – available from www.dublincomics.com

The Secret Blue Book

2007-02-04T13:39:00.000Z

Posted on September 29, 2005

Via a short essay the enduring power of the uniformed schoolgirl as fetishised erotic image is examined in A5 twenty-pager Some Notes Towards A Poetics Of Porn, part one of The Secret Blue Book trilogy. Image references are provided, and amongst the paragraphs devoted to the likes of The Belles Of St Trinians and TATU, emerges an intriguing observation: "An important element of girls' school mythos is that whilst first to fifth year girls are represented as innocent and inexperienced, a transgressive and taboo moment is implied as taking place between fifth and sixth years; girls become young women – experienced, glamorous, seductive and sophisticated. So where and when are such transformative moments of myth and legend deemed to take place?"

These hidden and deeply secret moments are made explicit in the 160-page, square-bound, part two of The Secret Blue Book trilogy. The Fifth Form At St Elmo's is an onanistic fantasy – part satire, part parody; or neither – set in an English girls' school, and featuring the borrowed characters of The Four Marys from Bunty. With fifth formers having already passed the watery blood, their dorm is gripped by sexual awakenings of a Charles Burns' Teen Plague-like contagion. Bedclothes are soon stained with cunt juice as one by one the girls use their prickly pears roughly and the caretaker's Negro boy's thirteen-inch column of pure lust becomes the object of their desire. Add to the wall-paste mix a horny headmistress's intimacy with a vodka bottle, a submissive chaplain's cross-dressing and a well-thumbed Tijuana Bible, and you've got lots of Mary fingers making Mary jelly up Mary cunts.

Porno Fun - this A6 Tijuana Bible and catalyst for much sexual abandon at St Elmo's - accounts for part three of The Secret Blue Book trilogy. A cartoon sex comic, it contains a hard-core Confessions Of glimpse into the life of an encyclopaedia salesman and continues the author's frank handling of the salacious. Working well in the context of its resonance with the exuberant prose of St Elmo's, this Eight-Pager either provides more gleefully dirty fun, or administers the final bludgeoning blow to libidos by a disdainful author reacting with invented reality to a fiction that already exists, and mindful of the notion that the erotic is the humanisation of the libido, pornography its trivialisation.

Available from www.bookartbookshop.com and www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Andrew Luke's Comic Book #4

2007-02-04T13:38:00.000Z

Posted on September 2, 2005

A mix culled from Andrew Luke's overflowing unpublished archives - his Henry Darger-like legacy - in some ways this publication is the paper equivalent of Miranda July's film, Me And You And Everyone We Know. Beneath its agreeably quirky, whimsy-strewn surface, bobs some universal truths, which, despite the oddness of under-realised subject matters, provides a curiously up- and off-beat entertainment with an accidentally personal quality.

TV trash, with value measured only in its ability to trigger glimpses of wasted youth, surfaces in the form of a trilogy of strips featuring a Luke-affected A-Team, Knight Rider and Incredible Hulk. Automan (?) puts in an appearance too, his car uttering the soon-to-be-immortal words, 'Walter, could you put your finger against my ram-pack for a minute'. The humour continues in the bizarre Unwanted (In Minor), a strip that echoes the reality-filled pressures of the LiveJournal logger's next entry as a character interrupts the enactment by friends of 'a secret story' in which he has no role. Guitar Festival Diary is an on-the-spot art diary covering two of the annual events, including gigs by John Martyn and Gordon Giltrap. It is here that Luke's relatively primitive drawing style suddenly transforms to a swarm of kinetic squiggles, evocatively capturing the live music vibe with synaesthesia-related accuracy – something of a revelation, this.

Also amongst the peculiar offerings is a controversial coffee in Coyle's Bar, an Eno Link Gallery, and a resistentialist lament for retired drawing pens, which further focuses this publication's forlorn hope that nostalgic objects might ease our sense of abandonment, and proves that the author himself is most likely outside the proverbial box, thinking of ways in. Let's not even go near Callista Flockhart And Beefburger!! ))<>((

20 A5 pages - check availability at http://andyluke.livejournal.com

Emerald Eye

2007-02-04T13:35:00.000Z

Posted on August 23, 2005

In selecting stories for this anthology of 'the best Irish imaginative fiction' by modern Irish authors, Emerald Eye editors Frank Ludlow and Roelof Goudriaan profess to being "guided only by a tale's ability to move, disturb and entertain". This book delivers on all counts, replacing leprechauns, banshees and faeries with paedophilia, necrophilia, genocide and whatever you're having yourself! However, it's not all penetrating Taboo-like studies of damaged individuals, a nail in their souls, their hearts snagging on rusty wire – there is much fun to be had, satire and a Bob Hope-like caper to be laughed at, an oblique ramble to be taken, an egg to be hatched. Four of the eighteen featured-stories are particularly fine…

With detached, matter-of-fact tone, Mike McCormack's unsettling, exquisitely macabre Thomas Crumlesh 1960-1992: A Retrospective details the offbeat relationship between a surgeon and an artist specialising in a kind of incremental snuff-art. The apocalyptic voyeurism continues in the complex and enthralling Hello Darkness, by Mike O'Driscoll, as a pseudo-disconnected actor past-his-peak allows a prurient obsession take hold while struggling with spiritual isolation and a death instinct. Shades here of Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron; the colour of this velvet most definitely being blue.
Essentially an intimate insight into the seductive craft of tailoring, and wet-dream territory for the trade no doubt, James White's curiously riveting Custom Fitting sees a conscientious tailor, and tyrant in sartorial matters, dress a physiologically difficult, first-contact alien due to be received by the Queen and world media. More gob-smacking delightfulness surfaces in the form of Bolus Ground by Fred Johnston. A rich, intoxicating, character-driven root through the behaviours of a stroppy old queen as he unveils his latest paintings, this one boasts wonderful word-smithery charged with bon mots of barbed eloquence.

A mostly enthralling, always entertaining read, Emerald Eye succeeds in providing expertly realised stories, each occasionally with dis/satisfying echoes of the other, and choc-full of afflicted characters, often with an irritation of spirit, searching out emotional sustenance, or escape, and touched by an appetite for things being done to bodies living or dead. With an exhilarating author-mix of professional, semi-professional and amateur - which includes Anne McCaffrey and William Trevor - this is a collection with irresistible rhythm that taxes one's reading stamina not in the least, though succeeds at times in leaving one breathless.

292 page pbk, £6.99 / €9.99 – available from www.albedo1.com

Albedo One #30

2007-02-04T13:31:00.000Z

Posted on August 17, 2005

What better way to avoid friction in life than to spend one's time reading? In opening short story, Will McIntosh's absorbing Friction, the quest of intellectual Gruen is to read the complete works of the one hundred thirty-seven masters carved into the hopelessly long 'Wisdom Wall'. But his kind are delicate; particularly vulnerable to physical stresses - many before him have been reduced to stumps in their friction-fraught tackling of the wall. Worse still: a sither's scent history will be lost forever unless Gruen aids the distraught Western. Will he postpone his treasured reading to risk wasting himself through such pointless friction?

Albedo One hits 30 and loses some of the swagger and vitality of 29, but remains committed to conscientiously crafted prose. Indeed, with denouements in the form of satisfying reversals, Friction and Some Action, particularly, prove there's life in the old mag yet!

Between these bookends is Pushing Down The Tombstone by Ralph Robert Moore, a supernatural tale predominantly pedestrian, but with its suspenseful notes. Robert Neilson's wacky The Pope, Sonny Liston And Me mixes time travel with boxing, and the bollixed Pope (Uncle Bill-Pius XXI) asks the question "How many popely ways are there to go?" The effective Campion And Demon Boy by Geoffrey Warburton echoes Alan Moore's A Small Killing with no little style and a degree of dash. Patrick Hudson's affecting The Persistence Of Memory adds new meaning to acronym DNR as it chronicles-not the layered life of a haunted man with body clock repeatedly reset via an injected 'rejuve agent'. The promising, Kafka-like opening to Lynne Ann Morse's underdeveloped Two-Face fails to deliver as the sudden appearance of a second face on the protagonist prompts only inane banter. The Cripple by John Kenny is broody stage-play material that offers earnest glimpse into a Sarajevo-set relationship touched by the shared destructive experience of pathogenic war, and frozen in time and trauma by replayed video footage. David Murphy's lyrical The Wonder Of Rocks details one man's transcendental experience in sighting a presumed-dead rocker – unnamed in this mood piece penned with Murphy's trademark musicality, but no doubt a pal of Buddy's.

Also on offer: in-depth and instructive science-fiction, horror and fantasy book reviews, a striking cover by Steve Augulis, Sophia Drenth's congenial interview with Clive Barker, and an apologetic slap for Sword & Sorcery via the Severian opinion piece.

Closing the anthology is Benjamin Reed's irresistible Some Action, wherein the only female cybernetic sex partner which Pleasure Labs 'Tester', the perfectly average John Green, dislikes working-on is the 'Sentimental' variety - a co-dependent sex cyborg. The Lab's head isn't happy either: what use is a man who has not had sex with an actual woman in two years when the key to product development is this man's success in providing comparisons between intimate experiences with sexual partners of both the real and the cyborg variety? There's only one thing for it: John must go out and get some action! (Tell me about it!)

56 A4 pages, £4.95 / €5.95 - available from www.albedo1.com

Spell Maffia

2007-02-04T13:30:00.000Z

Posted on August 7, 2005

A graphic novel from Aeon Press, the plush format of which elevates expectation, and consequently disappoints with clumsily placed computer lettering, sloppy, ill-shaped word balloons, and shifts in dialogue often relegated to a single panel. However, with a structurally sound story not dissimilar to teen-targeted territory covered in hip Irish film, writer John Lee and Hankiewicz-ish draughtsman Denise O'Moore provide harmless malarkey in which the light tone and laid-back protagonists fade the drama, but keep things agreeably mellow.

Despite assistance from the Wiccan community, passive widower Jack Kelly - proprietor of Dublin's New Age store, The Wizard Of Od – is no nearer to solving his escalating problems with Russian protection racketeers. When shop assistant Ben is abducted and ransomed, Jack has little choice but to involve an Irish Equaliser – the mysterious, deus ex machina-like 'Stan'. Inevitably all hell breaks loose as gangsters grapple with geomancy and gunfire; and, amid half-baked spells, romance flickers.

In short backup strip, Father Further Investigates, Bob (The Big Fellow) Neilson and Denise O'Moore mix clerics Ted and Dowling with The X-Files to diverting effect, as a sighting of Satan at a Dingle disco attracts the discerning gaze of the Church and the reader gleans a greater understanding of Irish folk tales. Much like the lead strip, this is slight stuff, with the same jarring sequential missteps tripped beneath stamina-lacking rotring. A graphic novel with more niggles than giggles then, but pleasant enough light-comedy for the undemanding reader.

102 pages, £6.99 - available from www.albedo1.com

Fragments #3

2007-02-04T13:27:00.000Z

Posted on June 7, 2005

Franchise-free but genre-hued, Fragments #3’s purposeful delivery of thinly disguised parables challenges the notion that truth is best served through fiction. It’s a personal detective story, sifting through what Dennis Potter describes as “the superfluity of clues”. Involved is “contending with all the shapes and half-shapes, all the memories, all the aspirations of life – how they coalesce, how they contradict each other, how they have to be disentangled as a human act by you yourself; by you, this unique sovereign individual behind all the selves that are being sold things.”

Again, as with previous issues, the pieces in #3 are made symbiotic by creator Christine Harper’s strong authorial presence, but here the autobiographical element heightens as the writer herself features in almost all strips. Despite this, and though the instruction booklet resemblance of previous issues is agreeably replaced by a more cohesive, more organic, more satisfying comic strip presentation, the ‘telling’ remains dominant over the ‘showing’ and hinders one’s involvement, leaving a niggling thirst for greater development of story structure. Ample compensation however is provided by a progressive ability to cartoon and by the fact that here is an author with something to say. Indeed, in Harper’s most accomplished work to date, ‘The Boys’ Club Talk Crap’, a sickly light is cast on male grotesques, and change fuelled by conflict is delivered in a disarming tonal mix of steaming venom and powdered vulnerability.

With high purpose and cathartic intent, Fragments #3 makes no apology for sermonising. Though absent of inventiveness in dealing with adult issues in a gripping way, this comic does have depth and meaning where others have only inventiveness and/or well-worn platitudes. Self-help philosophising of this kind is no commercial venture for the author – no evidence exists of pandering to the masses. But then, with Fragments there is the sense that Christine Harper has little choice in the matter. As Flaubert said, “We do not choose our subjects. They choose us.”

20 A5 pages, £1.50 - available from www.chezchrissie.co.uk

Incoming #3

2007-02-04T13:26:00.000Z

Posted on May 9, 2005

A hybrid of previous Shane Chebsey-edited publications CAOF Presents and Imagineers, Incoming is an attractive, polished and pristinely printed magazine that delivers an appealing, holistic balance of small press strips, interviews, news and comment, with in-depth reviews served by Steve Causer. Cumulative effects may cause a mild buzz.

Five complete strips are offered this issue. There’s gag-fuelled fun in Andy Vine’s to-the-point ‘The Pen Is Truly Mightier Than The Sword’ and in the space-indulgent ‘Sperm & Egg - Late’ by Mikey B and Andy Watson. ‘Origin Of The Species’, by thoroughly mainstream-professional pair Andy Dickenson and Sarah Evans, supplies science fiction of the Future Shock variety and boasts an impressive pencilled artwork. Equally eye-catching, though not quite as tight, is Rich Aidley’s ‘Staplebug Deicide’ – a breezy story concerned with a deity killing. My own sixth-class camping trip is revisited in the alternative-leaning ‘Three-Man’ – a text-heavy, ugly little strip that teeters on the brink of brilliance! (“Teeters on the brink of brilliance!” – TRS2)

Featured interviews are no less concerned with time travel and other worlds, though small press preoccupation with product management issues is indulged at the expense of much-needed creative/crafting discussion. All interviews prove insightful nonetheless. Shane Chebsey’s talks with Sean Michael Wilson of Boychild Productions and with Zulu: Water Cart Rescue creator Colin Mathieson take readers first to the manga scene in Japan, and then to a comics convention in Denmark. Meanwhile, Chris Atkins’ interview with Harrier Comics’ Martin Lock transports readers back to the labour-intensive days of late-seventies/early-eighties small press, a time when a ‘graphical user interface’ was just Asimov-speak.

No Redeye-lite then, Incoming is a good-natured magazine with wide appeal, accessible even to those with enthusiasm for but one facet of the small press trinity - be that community, business or creativity. Invested with personality and infectious zeal, it’s a fitting expression of the small press vibe.

40 A4 pages, £3.25 – check availability at www.smallzone.co.uk

Lolajean Riddle

2007-02-04T13:24:00.000Z

Posted on April 5, 2005

This is a character study in two parts, written by John Dunning and illustrated by Mardou. The first: an excursion into the inner life of a young, passive woman; her obsessions and her relation to the world about her. The second: this woman’s vicarious life as a young, active man; and in turn, his obsessions and his relation to the world about him. It’s a somewhat self-satisfied but substantial story with literary aspirations, which mixes the spirit of the Beat Generation with trash pop-culture, and though it has its excesses and false notes, provides sophisticated writing and an unerring sequentialism that incorporates a Crepax-like elegance into a Tomine/Clowes narrative style.

When freelance illustrator and 'self-mythologiser' Lolajean Riddle returns to the solitude and imagined dangers of The Ann Bolynn Motel (sic) for another of her working weekends, progress on illustrating her masterwork – ‘an authoritative sexual biography’ – is halted by the arrival of the equally pseudonymous Kurt Nicole-Smith, a writer and kindred spirit. The flirtatious, narcissistic kooks make an immediate connection, sharing an all-too-brief period of Lost In Translation-like intimacy, before returning to their respective lives – Lolajean to her boyfriend and a cosy village life of, if not quite quiet desperation, then tolerable mundanity; Kurt to Hollywood, and a drunk, wired and horny rapture.

Charming as Riddle is - and however intentionally elusive, ambiguous and obscure the read - failure to focus theme is its major flaw. Also absent is the satisfaction of an inner conflict resolved – does Riddle genuinely crave personal liberation? Or is she content to romanticise it, indulgently identifying with Anais Nin and others, incorporating their attributes and values in a bid to sidestep her own deficiencies and negotiate her day? That such a question is asked of this ambitious comic speaks volumes for its courage and skill. As Nin herself once wrote: ‘Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage’. The same goes for creativity. Respect to Lolajean Riddle - she deserves a shot!

36 A4 pages, £2.50 - check availability at mardouville.livejournal.com and www.smallzone.co.uk

Small Pets

2007-02-04T13:20:00.000Z

Posted on April 4 2005

The challenge for creators to work-to-theme can be fun and can sharpen crafting ability, but the results are often rightfully received with reader indifference. Working off a ‘small’ handicap, contributors to this Mardou-edited anthology disprove the theory that themed publications are about nothing but the process. Here, a flurry of formidable cartoonists responds with a felicitous confection.

Eighteen short strips account for this anthology. There’s whimsy in the guise of Phil Barrett’s exquisite Wee Creatures and in his perfect Small Change – the latter a Swift-like glimpse into the daily struggles of a maladjusted giant. Conflicts aroused by childhood interdependence are described, and vulnerability exposed, in Richard Cowdry’s hilarious Fatty, in Jeremy Dennis’ poignant Poets & Revolutionaries, and in Ted May’s pedestrian but amusing Beauty, Thy Name Is Agony. Also pedestrian but with deft characterisation is Arthur Goodman’s Small.

Jeremy Dennis too offers Small, as does Lee Kennedy, both producing wistful celebrations of childhood that linger lovingly on more innocent, less cluttered times. Clutter however is to the fore in Lucy Sweet’s delectable The Magic Bra (“Eat your heart out Eva Bosnia Herzogovnia!”), and the drudgery of the adult working world is dealt a final warning via the sexy antics of a waitress-minx in John Allison’s Scary Go Round, and via the wearily familiar predicament of the under-appreciated slogger of Ellen Lindner’s Coming Out Of A Coma (Or, How I Stopped Being A Museum Administrator).

Describing the early-hours rescue of a mouse from the clutches of a cat, Open Your Heart is Sean Azzopardi’s saccharine ode to empathy, which is unusual but nice. Peter Conrad’s illustrated list of life-fragments offers subliminal weight and proves curiously affecting; while diverting, gag-led folly with a smattering of charming surrealism is capably provided by David Robertson, Lucy, Jon Chandler, Herc and Andy Konky Kru. Not-so-slight is Mardou’s A John So Small, which flips/reworks Woody Allen and immerses the queasy reader in a fug of male perversion - to vaguely ill-fitting effect.

Though the diversity of styles, for the most part, shares a polish and a mainstream friendliness, it is the emotional centre at the core of this expertly produced anthology that makes it satisfying. Elbert Hubbard once wrote: ‘Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.' Small Pets then is both the work of innate talents, and of some great minds.

40 A5-ish pages, £2.50 - check availability at mardouville.livejournal.com

Sketchbook

2007-01-28T18:22:00.000Z

Posted on February 26, 2005

Comprising a symbiotic selection of images derived mostly from Paul (Mooncat) Schroeder’s sketch/doodle-a-day site, Sketchbook offers visual narratives which are provided a pseudo-storytelling impetus courtesy of a sequenced, panelled presentation. The elusiveness of these once-random sequences could either have readers delighted by the mystery or dismayed by the impenetrableness; but even when viewed primarily on an aesthetic level, there is much to admire in the kinetic energy of these connected drawings.

Schroeder sketches with urgent marker-strokes, not looking at the world directly, but absorbing it in fevered glimpses: the redbrick suburbia, the wind through startled trees, our weather. And as with Chris Reynolds and Richard Brautigan, these insinuations of life and landscape and atmosphere are like the stuff of eidetic memory; like ghosts that drift through us on their way to someplace else. In essence, Sketchbook is a reminder of things that slip our minds when we’re convinced there’s nothing to hold on to. It’s both oddly reassuring and quietly inspiring.

20 A5 pages, £1 - check availability at http://monocat.livejournal.com

The Ex Revenge Project

2007-01-28T18:21:00.000Z

Posted on December 12, 2004

Cinema Sewer creator Robin Bougie mines the bilious online-subculture of jilted males bent on the humiliation of ex-partners by means of pushing once-private knowledge into the public domain, both through written description and photographic evidence. With names withheld and pornographic snaps converted to pen & ink drawings, Bougie's oblique reproduction of the pathogenic effect of break-ups is agreeably sanitised and succeeds in absolving the reader of indirect involvement in the abuse - that is, beyond the reader-as-consumer responsibility for maintaining this residual market.

The Ex Revenge Project offers eighteen illustrations accompanied by inherently depraved accounts of sexual activities as detailed by an assortment of vengeful males intent on the promotion of their own sexual proclivity through the profound embarrassment of ex-girlfriends. There's no Heathcliff or Mr Darcy here; expect no semblance of punishment as prompted by moral outrage at transgressed values. No, here civilised society takes a backseat with Vaughan from Ballard's Crash, and Bougie doesn't need to tilt the rear-view mirror much to allow us an eyeful of sexual displacement, psychological disinhibition and a dismantling of repression.

Repulsive and compelling, and with well-directed restraint, The Ex Revenge Project captures confused emotion pervaded by a sexuality gone sour. You'll mourn the loss of our biologic 'mating season' regulation; you'll wince at the emergence of a taboo-breaking, confessional society; and you'll embrace asexuality with a gnawing despair. Look away, S. Clay Wilson - this is dynamite! In the pages of The Ex Revenge Project, man will delight you not, no, nor women neither…nor women neither.

20 A5-ish pages, $3 - check availability at www.cinemasewer.com

Fragments #2

2007-01-28T18:20:00.000Z

Posted on November 29, 2004

The will for things to be right with the world is commendable subject matter for creative endeavour. Fragments #2 is pretty much beyond reproach in this respect. However, in terms of the application of craft and imagination in realising a satisfying, engaging whole, this title is somewhat lacking. Certainly in its current not-quite-there state, it’s more document-driven than ‘arty’.

Much like the rudimentary narrative of Fragments #1, the pieces in this second issue are made symbiotic by the obvious, inherent ‘voice’ of author Christine Harper and by esoteric subtext. Among the offerings is comic strip ‘Nazi Sock Puppets’, juxtaposed dialogue/poem/illustration ‘The Tragedie Of Richard The Turd’, and text piece ‘Room 101’. Though there exists an inconsistency of cartooning style, the shared polish and bold clarity of the visuals provide the required cohesion, and the work just about hangs together as a curiously shorthand whole. That it resembles some form of ethics instruction booklet (with no hint of parody) cut & pasted to appeal to attention-deficient children, is unfortunate; but with some design-tweaking, subsequent issues could achieve the less free-form, more adult delivery of Totem/Icon Books’ Introducing/For Beginners series.

As the recent wealth of cinema-released documentaries suggest, there is an audience for pressing, universal issues discussed/raised with personality and intelligence. In this respect (and though no ‘The Corporation’), the brief soapboxery of Fragments #2 won’t disappoint. It’s a didactic, mostly relevant tuppence-worth.

12 A5 pages, £1 - available from www.chezchrissie.co.uk

Albedo One #29

2007-01-28T18:19:00.000Z

Posted on November 19, 2004

Often the published short story will read like a between-books workout for writers intent on maintaining a style, or as means of urging creative juices to again flow. Usually the flimsiness is hidden beneath a polished formula, which lulls the reader into reluctant appreciation. During its 10-plus years of publication, the speculative fiction of anthology Albedo One has at times prompted just such appreciation in me. However, this most recent square-bound issue with full-colour cover is a particularly sound addition to its award-winning back-catalogue.

Seven short stories feature. There's Sara Berniker's elusively allegorical A Boy Needs A Dog and DJ Cockburn's erotically charged Summer Holidays - both well crafted tales which share umbilical-tied boy protagonists who idealise absent fathers and are desperate for a semblance of control in their oppressed lives. In the comical Classroom Dynamics by D. Harlan Wilson, Professor Beebody is not a big fan of killing his students (even those with 'mongoloid intellects'), but with Dean Dinglewigger favouring a minor killing spree over the Robin Williams approach to teaching, Beebody has little option but to up his murder rate. If Battle Royale-like fantasy-for-teachers is not your thing, there's metaphysics in the cosmic surrealism of Russell Miles' clever Red-shift Days; there's dense, wordy, flourish-fluent prose in the impressively realised Code 46-like future of Martin Taulbut's Hide And Seek With Angels; and there's spicy adventure conjured in Dev Agarwal's evocative City Of Palaces as an Englishman on-the-run from the Thugee Cult must depart a Calcutta desperate to throw-off the shackles of British colonialism. Splendidly wrapping things up is Davin Ireland's Dirt, a Tales Of The Unexpected told with disarming verve, which echoes the Fortean-inspired opening to PT Anderson's Magnolia and mixes suspense and humour to thoroughly entertaining, gleefully evil effect.

Also on offer is sublime cover art by Matthew Hansel, a world affairs talk with Alan Dean Foster, a brief brush with history via Norman Spinrad, a letters column, reviews and amusing, philosophical comment in the form of the Severian sermon. A money-off coupon for kitchen sinks may well feature next issue, but meanwhile, if you're flatulently full with the fluffer shorts of pedestrian writers going through the motions, a dose of Albedo One #29 is the perfect antidote.

62 A4 pages, £5.95 / €4.95 - available from www.albedo1.com

Whores Of Mensa

2007-01-28T18:18:00.000Z

Posted on August 13, 2004

Probably fuelled by a fug of Bacardi Breezer and Marlboro Light, this flirty, giggly anthology of strips comes courtesy of libidinous cartoonists Jeremy Dennis, Mardou and Lucy Sweet. Comprising work created individually but with (mostly) symbiotic intent, the collection manages a cohesive, light-hearted whole, coloured by muted sophistication.

Dennis offers 'The Society Of Dead Poets', an amusing, character-driven piece which describes an interruption to the cartoonist’s discipline and art-time by lusting literary sorts of yore, amongst them: John Keats, Aubrey Beardsley and Aphra Behn. (No, me neither.) Kind of lacking direction, and consequently impetus, this erotically charged strip is best savoured for its spellbindingly fluid cartooning of the clean-line variety, which dances oh-so-seductively from panel to panel with pic-teasing allure.
The Sweet section opens wide with double entendre-strewn ‘Justin Timberlake Laid My Laminate!’ - “Ooh! You are awful!” indeed! – and then frantically follows with short, punchy strips which mostly revel in the excesses of fad-informed life. Occasionally shooting blanks script-wise, but always with endearing Carrie Bradshaw-like exuberance, Sweet’s sound design sense and delightfully earthy cartooning prove an irresistibly lovable combination.
Appealing goofballery abounds in ‘Dojo My Love’ as Mardou beckons with a sequentially indulgent reworking-of-sorts of also-featured 1-page gem ‘Sillitoe’s Baby’ – both of which are sexually concerned with The Karate Kid’s Mr Miyagi, among others! With Mardou’s artistic effort seemingly diverted towards achieving a visual polish at the expense of detail and textural nuance, her cartooning is mostly reduced to role of functional support. No bad thing this when final strip ‘Fahrenheit 50/50’ offers a clever script and fitting climax as it adapts book/movie ‘Fahrenheit 451’ for a comics audience - to hilarious and slightly unsettling consequence.

Whores Of Mensa? You’ll not find intellectual experiences peddled here. No, these whores are faking it. However, if you yearn for a bit of frothy, lip-glossed entertainment that tolerates little emotion and eloquently says nothing, this is the trick for you. It’s the perfect book-buddy!

32 A4 pages, £3 - check availability at http://cleanskies.livejournal.com/

Beowulf Cartoon

2007-01-28T18:17:00.000Z

Posted on July 20, 2004

Mike Weller, acclaimed creator of Space Opera, Fanzine Fiction and Madeline My Love In Death And Fancy, turns his attention to 1000 a.d. (ish) poem Beowulf and conjures a matter-of-fact prose retelling, suffused with suspense and intrigue. Present are those elements of ‘high culture’ that lend greater legitimacy to the superhero genre - which we all enjoy - and a sense of foreboding integral to the effectiveness of good horror - which again, we all enjoy. As Bill Griffiths puts it in his introduction, ‘what better than - a book of Beowulf!’

Hideous swamp giant Grendel, a half-man half-god cast out of Asgard by Odin and Frigor, wreaks havoc nightly on Danmark’s great banqueting hall, Heorot. When women, minstrels and poets alike refuse to enter Heorot for fear of Grendel’s thirst for human prey, and when all that remains of heroes in the morning light are bloodstains on benches and tables, once-great king Hrothgar is reduced to prisoner of his own kingdom. Enter: Beowulf - champion swimmer, Scandanavian-famed as the youth whose hands have the strength of 30 men, rumoured bed-wetter and same-sex fancier. Can he and his 14 loyal kinsmen be the first men in 12 years to stay in the banqueting hall after dark? And what of the hushed stories of a second unearthly creature, woman-shaped and giant? Our hero, it seems, has his work cut out.

Presumably what sets this production of Beowulf apart from others is Weller’s bloody mindedness in attempting to capture a visually lyrical quality befitting a story originally created for an oral tradition. Practically the whole of the book’s 176 pages is imaginatively hand-lettered, mostly in bubble-style, with illustrations used sparingly but to affecting consequence. It is either the startling work of a madman, or of one who understands the conditions of the world and who has found his own tranquillity and order. Either way, here Weller entertains with tales of long long before.

176 A4 pages, £15 – available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk

Matter Summer Special

2007-01-28T18:16:00.000Z

Posted on July 17, 2004

When the local wacky-backy supply runs dry and the chopped-up grilled skin-of-banana still refuses to smoke right, the world of Cheech & Chongers Whitey White and Sean Brown becomes all hard-edged and distinct. Worse still: their sex-drives are returning! In desperation the duo respond to a small-ad cypher and soon receive the kind of imbibation capable of transporting them through an interdimensional lesion and embroiling them in a covert corporate struggle for monopoly of this transporting/embroiling substance. Add to the joint a Ruskie hitman tamed by love, an out-of-this-world romance and a finale in which a friendship is saved with the aid of diseased skin and a mullet, and readers may find that they have long passed the five leaves left stage!

‘Serious Gear’ (being the title of this Coen-like story) is of course a trip itself. Creator Philip Barrett sheds the frame structure in favour of open panels and a thinking outside the box, adopts doodling-brush to complementary effect, and achieves a breezy, fluid reading experience that floats along with a kind of measured drift - an approach which enhances some inventively surreal sequences. Vaguely resembling a Health Board booklet designed to surreptitiously educate the masses, this little book of blow is a fun, funny read. Passive smoking, gentle reader, has never been safer!

80 A6 pages, €3 / £2.50 / $5.00 (postage included) - available from www.blackshapes.com

Stiro #3

2007-01-28T18:15:00.000Z

Posted on February 18, 2004

My osmotic take on writer Forstenski as foppish agitator struggling to shake his petit bourgeois mores is not always at odds with the tone and subject matter of the stories featured in Stiro, but read sans-misconception the third issue is infinitely more digestible and thoroughly enjoyable. Again capably aided by Mardou, here the artist mostly adopts an economical, cartoonish approach to the art, and though this retains only a fraction of the detail and character of her Manhole work, it should prove agreeably polished to those with an eye for evidence of a more conventional, developed style.

Opening strip ‘Marie Antoinette’ describes the winding-down of an off-kilter romance between a circus wolf-boy and an elusive character that may or may not be more than a circus-hand with delusions of Royal grandeur. Permeated by a deadpan humour, this two-page tale provides some amusing dialogue and contains the instantly classic line, "Your naivety is pleasing, wolf-boy."
In ‘33 Sleaford Street’, the slacker generation is spotlighted as the ennui of two unemployed flatmates is interrupted by the introduction of a friend’s girl to the scene. It’s routine slice-of-life stuff, but with adroit characterisation and a wit that isn’t too laboured, is well realised.

At ten pages the Manga parody ’My Name Is Stiro’ accounts for almost half of the publication and, I’m relieved to report, justifies this devotion of space. With ambitious narrative structure it offers glimpses into the animated lives of some pure and true youths as they join forces to battle the analogous Sea-Badger, sixty metres tall and terrorizing Tokyo. A casual deconstruction of the genre adds some weight to the laughs and the art is appropriately Manga-functional.
Three short strips end the issue: the slightly indulgent but visually inventive ‘Terence Gets Uppity’, the Clowes-like ‘First Date’ (which contains a priceless panel depicting the dating couple occupying the front seats of the ‘59’ double-decker. ‘It‘s just two stops more,’ says the bloke) and ’It’s a Sickness’, a half-hearted frustration with the fact that sex shades our every fibre - which fails to recognise that sex is a biological imperative and is indistinguishable from what we call ‘personality’.

Stiro #3 is no pseudo-Marxist ‘call to arms’ or demagogy - I’m obviously not absorbing information like I used to! What it is however is a thematically symbiotic collection of work that abandons sentiment and poignancy for dry wit and a playful edge, and which manages a kind of defective charm fuelled by intellect rather than emotion. It should certainly prove sound enough entertainment for adults, irrespective of class and degree of submission to the ageing process.

24 A4 pages, £2.50 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Andrew Luke's Comic Book: Episode III

2007-01-28T18:14:00.000Z

Posted on October 31, 2003

When Jazz & Blues act Sy Snootles And The Max Rebo Band embrace the techno wizardry of new member R2D2, their residency at the Cantina is relinquished in favour of an intergalactic tour which (metaphorically) includes a few disturbed nights at the Casino Royale - with cheese aplenty! Meanwhile, in the hands of creator Andy Luke, band roadie and occasional tippler Anakin Skywalker proves himself more worthy of the identity 'Heineken Skywalker', and Samuel L. cements his reputation as an actor capable of five easily recognisable facial expressions.

Affectionate parody of the Star Wars mythology, however irreverent, is not my thing. However, in Revenge of the Cantina Andy Luke provides the shifting focus of a non-linear narrative applied to a linear plot, which at one point prompted me to contemplate the abandonment of reading in favour of some form of sequential snorting. The patchy artwork, though no more than functional, manages a naive appeal, and any creative effort I think that can inherently highlight the error of the most blatant beard-promotion since Grizzly Adams is to be applauded. All in all, an oblique reading experience that made the back of my brain hum. (And no, I don't know if this is a good thing!)

28 A5 pages, £1.50 – check availability at http://andyluke.livejournal.com

Cartoon Showcase #1

2007-01-28T18:13:00.000Z

Posted on October 30, 2003

Containing power fantasy parody vitally flavoured with a Whizzer & Chipsiness, this collection of one and two page strips is enjoyably diverting. The endearing brevity offers a series of padding-free scripts adequately cartooned, which succeed in telling neat, little stories that introduce absurd villains and prompt a smile or two on the way.

In one such story Paul McCartney has been replaced with an android, and female agent Diana St George must track down Damon Quint, the diabolical mastermind responsible. Conveniently enough, this villain also runs the small shop 'Quint Electronics' and St George soon has the culprit in her sights.

With a sugar-fuelled mania throughout, Martin Street's Cartoon Showcase #1 is solid entertainment for the offspring of comics fans and, with adult sustenance found elsewhere, for the small press enthusiast attentive to the demands of their inner child.

14 A4 pages, 50p - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

All Fall Down #1

2007-01-28T18:12:00.000Z

Posted on October 14, 2003

Bit of an engaging shambles, this, a collection of strips from siblings Louise and Trevor Smith, which might more appropriately have been titled 'All Fall Apart'.

'Suburban Tales Of Horror' and 'A Teddy Bear's Revenge', both courtesy of Louise, seem plagued by an insecurity-fuelled panic, which cripples these potentially rewarding stories with a deus ex machina disguised as off-the-wall craziness. The former displays some lovely detailed cartooning that is modestly ambitious; the latter, some sound writing ('til loss of composure) that succeeds in involving the reader. Trevor's series of 'Mix Tape' one-pagers prove the more satisfying read, being of a taming brevity. In essence the observations of a fledgling cynic not yet resigned to his lot, they're nicely understated and adequately illustrated. Of equal appeal is Trevor's short text piece 'Crowd'; a clever, lyrical contemplation on interrupted gatherings. Joint and further solo efforts account for the remainder of the issue, but only worthy of note is the sloppily realised parable of 'Jethro Meed', a boy who harnesses, then misuses the power provided by a build-up of sulphur in his fingertips.

Mostly under-developed and with impatient scripts that often drift into an irritating 'zany' or an irritating 'meaningful', All Fall Down #1 offers some polished if unremarkable cartooning, and afflicted flashes of potential.

36 A4 pages, £2.10 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Music For Munchers #1

2007-01-28T18:11:00.000Z

Posted on October 13, 2003

A series of disparate cartoons by Andy Stanton that is mostly gag-free in favour of a casual profundity. Essentially it's a transparent attempt to capture the easy creative energy of absurdist David Shrigley, but the result lacks a convincingly askew worldview and is curiously soulless. Considered a foundation for the development of his own style, some encouragingly amusing moments surface, among them the line, "You know, they called me 'ugly' at school...but I had the last laugh - I watch porn every night!" However, if you're familiar with the four course symphonies of Shrigley or Toby Tripp, 'Munchers' won't satisfy, and will be difficult to hold down. If you're not, though...

32 A7 pages, 75p - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

The Anthology Project #1

2007-01-28T18:10:00.000Z

Posted on October 12, 2003

A flimsy but mostly worthwhile attempt to capture a sophistication worthy of adult attention, 'The Anthology Project' offers a mix of solidly crafted strips and prose with off-beat appeal, but little resonance.

'Mr Smith' by Bonney and McColm, and 'The Dream Of Lazarus' by McColm, provides some effective sequential moments and a 'voice' which engages my adult ear. The former concerns a Green Mile-like incarceration; the latter a character-motivated study of an abyss-gazing ex-cop, past his prime. Equally beyond his 'best before date' is the elderly protagonist of Bonney's short story 'Tomorrow'- an uneventful piece with a first person narrative which, for the duration of the read, successfully made this reader experience what it is to exist without sense of anticipation. 'Nemesis' and 'The Experiment', again by Bonney, are photo-aided presentations of mercifully brief texts that are laboriously earnest and wannabe-worthy. And 'To End All Wars' by Bonney, with art by Walker, is a predictable, humdrum tale of a war casualty 'recovering' in hospital-with-a-twist.

Technically sound throughout, with thematically symbiotic contents, The Anthology Project may lack the complexity and subtlety of subtext to satisfy a mature readership, but certainly offers enough to seduce the average small press enthusiast.

36 A5 pages, £1 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Hope For The Future #5

2007-01-28T18:09:00.000Z

Posted on October 10, 2003

One for a young Deadline kind of audience, this. Preceding the beginning of the story proper, seven pages of visually pleasing but indulgent 'character development' (disguised as youthful, inane, quip-fuelled banter) redundantly opens proceedings. Ironically, page 8 offers set-up enough, page 9 the story trigger, and only then do momentum and anticipation build as three Spaced-like friends investigate a Satanic cult and make a startling discovery before the tale lamely fizzles out. The cartooning of writer/penciller Simon Perrins and inker Andrew Livesey is Ilya-like lovely, boasting a flawless sequential storytelling; and suitable computer lettering is competently applied to complete the visual polish. With a half-hearted 'director's commentary' thrown in, it's all likeable, vacant hokum. (That needs grabbing by the shoulders and thorough shaking!)

36 A5 pages, £1.50 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Train To Shanghai

2007-01-28T18:08:00.000Z

Posted on October 9, 2003

Poorly crafted with Mark Beyer-like graphics (mostly) and an often clueless narrative which finds little rhythm and jarringly switches tense half-way through, 'Train To Shanghai' has nothing going for it save for a thoroughly disarming charm, a matter-of-fact honesty and an author with something of actual interest to relate. Detailing (presumably) creator Rob Jackson's 33 hour train journey from Harbin to Shanghai, this travelogue captures with bemused detachment the alienation and the physical and emotional discomfort of cramped conditions shared with a culturally and linguistically different people. There is intrigue, deftly realised characterisation, and towards the end, some photo-referenced cityscapes imbued with nuance. Certainly there's no polished swagger here, but the primitive shapes this title throws are both captivating and distinct.

28 A5 pages, £1.20 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Little Jimmy's Day In London

2007-01-28T18:07:00.000Z

Posted on October 9, 2003

Styled on a children's book for 4-6 year olds, but with nods of misjudged humour in the direction of a crossover adult market, 'Little Jimmy's Day In London' (400 words approx.) may satisfy neither the young nor the old. With politicians described as men who wear suits and lie a lot, and beer and turps associated with the homeless, its fatal flaw is the inability of the author to recognise that in the context of a book for children, socio-political opinion (especially when inappropriately sour) should exist as subtext for adult deciphering, rather than as a surface reading for children. The shaded, pencil drawings are nice, though, and the A6 landscape presentation neat and polished. Creator Adam Davison just needs desperately to eliminate confusion by re-adjusting his focus on a target audience.

24 A5 pages, £1 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Anxious Something

2007-01-28T18:06:00.000Z

Posted on October 7, 2003

An elusive, silent mood piece not for those inclined to consider such things a form of onanism, 'Anxious Something' comprises a montage of seemingly random sequences, which form a visual description of anxiety rooted in Catholic guilt. Impressively, the pen and charcoal art echoes a disarming Mattotti and McKean, and the whole A6, card covered package offers a subdued sophistication suited to further elevating coffee table pretension. A collectable objet d'art from creator Chris Stonehill.

28 A6 pages, £1.50 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Mbleh! #3

2007-01-28T18:04:00.000Z

Posted on October 5, 2003

Not so suffused with the temporary mania celebrated in previous issues, Mbleh! #3 offers indication of a maturing, more composed Bob Byrne. Still in evidence is that penchant for tapping a cruel humour rooted in the imaginative abuse of cute, bug-eyed cartoons with vulnerable, child-like characteristics; but also apparent is a thirst for achieving more than a sequence of quick-fix pay-offs saturated in pathos to sate the desensitised appetites of South Park junkies.

No more is the success of this development evident than in 'Negative Space' and in 'Mister Amperduke'. The former is occupied with a boy victimised for displaying a right side of the brain perception. His struggle to find understanding in an artistic rather than autistic context is derailed by a mother intent on a correctional procedure that requires a surgical hell involving Tetris shapes. A minor structural collapse in the penultimate page of this story fails to halt one's sense of anticipation and involvement, and the thing reaches a satisfying, bitter-sweet conclusion.
In the allegorical 'Mister Amperduke', the serenity of a community of sentient, anthropoid creatures with Lego-men attire is interrupted by the arrival of three undressed strangers. Though the same beneath their Lego-men shells, the community refuse to accept the presence of these outsiders and set about rectifying matters. A 'simple' six-pager told in hypnotic 16 panel grids with affecting Chris Ware silence, 'Mister Amperduke' is quality, adult storytelling.

Mbleh! #3 is not without its flaws, though. At times derivative, disjointed and lacking succinctness of script, it is occasionally afflicted with sudden lapses in rhythm, but never falters in emanating a seductive gusto. There is a sense of the drunk finding his feet on a shifting surface; upright between awkward stumbles. Fortunately Bob Byrne realises that cracking a head open on the pavement loses its comedic effect after a while. His mad buzz fades, and methinks his vision begins to clear.

US size, 36 glossy pages, $2.95 / €3 - available from www.clamnuts.com

Freak Show #1

2007-01-28T15:01:00.000Z

Posted on August 22, 2003

Atomic Diner's third title lacks the charm of In Dublin City and is without the finesse of Naked Lunch, but does offer a brash, ballsy appeal that should sate the between meals appetite of fans of hard-boiled detective fiction. Be prepared to pile on the weight, though - Freak Show is a thirty-five issue maxi series! (Hark! Does the death knell sound so early?)

Set in America during the 1950's, Freakshow #1 echoes elements of LA Confidential, but in it's urgency to deliver a complete story with its premiere issue, provides a purely surface reading experience, and ends before one settles to what semblance of a mid-section of story the thing offers. However, the scripting of Rob Curley is crisp, the pace fast, and the dialogue ugly.

Equally ugly is an artwork over-stylised in a bid to lend sophistication to an inappropriately cartoonish look. Panels of penciller Terry Kenny and inker Lisa Jackson at times are without clarity and without subtlety of expression due to lack of variety in the weight of inked line; but conversely, pages are attractive, utilising inventive layouts and competent compositional use of black areas.

Room for improvement then, but with a sound enough storytelling, a solid draughtsmanship and a sequential know-how already in evidence, there is reason to believe that, given time, Freak Show could develop into a satisfying series. One hopes the death knell will fade. (The fact, anyway, that it exists only in my pessimistic head suggests it may well just be a case of tinnitus. Hurrah!)

US size, 28 glossy pages, €3.75 / $2.95 - available from Atomic Diner, 2 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Email robatomicdiner@eircom.net

The Girly Comic #3

2007-01-28T14:56:00.000Z

Posted on July 18, 2003

Well crafted but unremarkable, Girly Comic #3 offers a pleasing diversity of art styles and subject matters, but is insubstantial and un-involving. It's the kind of thing that slips past, leaving no trace on the memory - not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly far from satisfying.

Slight, indulgent pieces surface in the form of the polished but pedestrian 'Simple Simon', the appealingly primitive but clumsily delivered 'Housekeeping Tips', the skilled, animatory 'Da Hood' and the tired parody, 'Dr Love Monkey'. 'My Dead And Me' and 'The Cull' at least suggest the possibility of depth, but lose their way, albeit in a diverting manner. The curious 'Oddcases' employs a disarming matter-of-fact approach to the subject of phantom birthing and combines with a delicate, gay artwork to produce a sedate reading experience that is peculiarly seductive. Equally engaging is 'An Open Book'; however, the Vertigo-affected gift/curse take on ESP stifles the impressively sophisticated artwork with chunks of exposition and asks only of the artist that he do his thing with just talking heads to play with. He does so with nonchalant swagger.

In The Girly Comic, editor Selina Lock has an anthology of solid, well-executed strips. That these strips fail to engage emotionally and are more insipid than inspirational will probably not register with a 'teen audience. Adult small press enthusiasts probably won't care either.

44 A5 pages, colour/b&w interior, £2.50 + 50p postage - available from www.factorfictionpress.co.uk

Manhole #1

2007-01-28T14:52:00.000Z

Posted on June 19, 2003

Ha! The brain sparks in oblique directions in contemplation of such a title! And though creator Mardou (best known for Stiro) delivers only on some of the suggested resonance, she is probably wise to sidestep any deliberations on the hairy holes of man! (That said, we are not a million miles from Julie Doucet territory. Though, perhaps story-wise, Jessica Abel provides the more apt comparison; and a Debbie Drechsler influence probably lurks some place in the art.)

Three stories account for this first issue, and all offer determined focus and convincing, authoritative voice complemented by honest, natural art devoid of the 'how to' template that instruction provides. (Occasionally betrayed, however, by disagreeably square panels that refuse to sit comfortably on the page.)

In 'Esme's Door' a grandmother tentatively recounts a childhood 'Looking Glass'-type experience to her cynical daughter, triggering a brief struggle between logic and emotion, and highlighting a subtle absence in the mother/daughter relationship. Elevated by a vague sense of subtext existing, this short proves peculiarly satisfying.
'George Best' is an intimate love story firmly rooted in the mundane which details the mostly peripheral experience of a romance interrupted by the exchange of bodily fluids. Matter-of-fact and narrated with a (retrospective) detached coolness, its gradual accumulation of detail conspires to create an irritating stereotype: a vinyl collection; books on Buddhism; Nick Cave, Lou Reed and PJ Harvey; something chemical at work; herb tea and insomnia. Though always captivating and not without humour ("I called in sick and accidentally quit my job"), the passivity of the narration smothers any semblance of gravity and constantly chips away at the prospect of impact.
In 'Mercury Girl' a tenant voyeur tires of merely looking, and, possessed of a master key, sets about 'connecting' with a fellow tenant in his own disturbed way. Lyrically scripted with insular viewpoint, the potential for suspense is not quite realised, but the strip remains engaging in its attempt to provide some insight into a mindset that prompts obsessive infatuation in a somewhat bipolar personality.
Completing the issue is the curious astrological readings of prominent comics creators as dictated by their star signs. A ‘must’ for those who crave a better understanding of fan favourites and their work!

Well realised then, Manhole #1 is occupied with mature, intelligent subject matter. The fluid story-telling, appealing density of both art and script, and a sense of the author's reluctance to deviate from the 'truth' reduce criticisms to mere quibbles and mark the publication as one which offers healthy helping of substance. And yes, it has to be said: this is one manhole punters should willingly step into! (As opposed to lube up and carefully slip into!!)

US size, 32 pages, £2.50 (+50p p&p) – check availability at mardouville.livejournal.com

Matter #2

2007-01-28T14:51:00.000Z

Posted on May 14, 2003

Yet more evidence that cartoonist Philip Barrett is a creator in control of his craft. With foundations of skill, sequential know-how and good judgement, even on automatic he is capable of affecting, absorbing work. More often than not, though, this sturdy, underlying support provides platform for achieving that effortless surface one associates with the likes of Eddie Campbell, which of course oozes its own kind of seductive charm.

Explored in opening strip, 'The Record', is an all-consuming obsession - of the Clowes Velvet Glove ilk. Executed with the kind of ease that requires meticulous planning, it's the tale of a life haunted by the sounds of mysterious vinyl The Landing, and of the vacuum its absence bequeaths. Gag-like but ambitious strip 'The Divils' follows with slightly indulgent page-count. Lacking the omnipresent finesse of the opening strip, it engages visually, proves both amusing and disturbing in equal measure, but ultimately provides superfluous script. In 'Touched', space/time is tweaked to resonant effect before (and after) the strip settles to offer a wonderfully knowing characterisation via a glimpse of domestic life - in which the omnipotent voice of mother organises the fates of those below her, and the daughter finally gets off with Paul Speers! 'Girl On Chair' ends the issue in bizarre fashion, somehow succeeding in making sexual beings of both Mr Benn and King Rolo while delivering insight into the mind-set of female gallery attendant!

One is seduced not so much by the slight stories of Matter #2 as by a close-to-faultless story-telling possessed of a lulling sentimentality. Even when a hollow note is struck - which is rare - compensation takes the form of a work ever imbued with infectious warmth and good humour, which marks something of a tonal deviation from the cynicism of earlier publication 'A Crack In The Shell'. Also added here - in 'The Record' - is an interruption to passivity by a decision made; a thing done as opposed to a thing happening. Recommended.

24 A5 pages - available from www.blackshapes.com

In Dublin City

2007-01-28T14:49:00.000Z

Posted on May 4, 2003

Another title with Atomic Diner imprint, and, as advance publicity optimistically suggests, just the second in a courageous line of Irish comics packaged with mainstream ambition. Publisher Rob Curley is fast becoming the Dez Skinn of Ireland's nascent comics industry! And, despite his ambition, obviously recognises that 'industry' more often than not contains dark, satanic mills in which the souls of men are ground to valueless dust - all proceeds from the sale of this book are donated to the Simon Community. (A charity for the homeless.)

In Dublin City, by Gerry Hunt, is an incantation to and of this fair city, but not so much penned by a James Joyce as by a Ronnie Drew! It bustles with common muckers and oozes a seductive salta-de-eart exuberance that demands affection, but that fails to engage as a work of sequential art. Centred around a card game destined for urban folkloric status, a crowded proximity of peripheral characters, Dublin city itself and a ballad-like narrative combine to allow the reader to witness the magical transition from the everyday to legend. It is a chemistry that almost overwhelms the reader with urgent appreciation.
In Dublin City is flawed, though. A tour of exquisitely detailed city buildings is obstructed by jarring figure drawings inconsistent in both style and quality; lettering is cramped in squared word balloons that at times are poorly placed; and the often dissociative narrative fails to focus the montage effect.

Not wholly satisfactory as a comics work then, In Dublin City occupies that space where the fusion of words and images make something related to sequential art. But believe me, a sense of guilt is unavoidable if read with failing stamina, because there is much to admire here. Eisner gave us 'A Contract With God'; Hunt offers 'A Contract With Sod'. It's a charmer; and just that little bit sozzled, perhaps.

36 A4 glossy pages, €3 - available from: Atomic Diner, 51 Tyrconnell Park, Inchicore, Dublin 8, Eire. Email robatomicdiner@eircom.net

The Sound Of Drowning #3

2007-01-28T14:46:00.000Z

Posted on March 15, 2003

This issue, co-crafted by O'Connell and Vincent, consigns to the deep the misguided ambition of #2's now-cement-shoed Vertigo pastiche, and with featured 13 page strip 'Adler', marks a welcome return to the Lynchian mood pieces of #1.

Discontented with the banjaxed nature of charity shop purchased typewriter, the would-be typist, while struggling both mentally and physically with writer's block, muses on the possibility of this ancient Adler's historical association with the Third Reich - prompting an abstract stream-of-consciousness distilled to brief, vague pseudo-sentences juxtaposed with reliably striking/haunting images of Nazi/Holocaust iconography.

Of its kind, this is a faultlessly realised, neatly crafted non-linear tale, satisfying in its suggestion of elusive sub-text, and bold in its refusal to allow the reader to settle. It employs what I term 'the Amaranthus fades' school of narrative, which, like my phrase, defies the audience to make of it what they will; but, pleasantly mysterious or impenetrably pretentious, leaves both camps with that niggling sense of one's own intelligence overestimated. (Had me humbly search-engining 'arbeit macht frei' at any rate!)

To be admired and/or to be enjoyed then, The Sound Of Drowning #3 boasts a moody montage of filtered photo that melts into the words, is well worth the wetting, and is of a perfectly collectible guillotined size - undecided between A5 and A6.

60p (+ p&p) - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

The Sound Of Drowning #1 & 2

2007-01-28T14:44:00.000Z

Posted on December 19, 2002

Not so much the product of a cartoonist comfortable with the panel-to-panel consistency our beloved strip-form requires, as that of a writer/artist conscious of this requirement, 'The Sound Of Drowning' displays a developed grasp of design, is pleasing to the eye, and achieves a polish impressive enough to blind a prospective audience to the fact that issue two's montage/collage effect, for the most part, is redundant.

This second issue seems to strive for a kind of DC/Vertigo-impaired scripting, with self-involved delivery that strains for depth - which isn't to say it doesn't contain some competent, fluid writing, buoyed by a hint of knowing maturity; it's just the tone indulges in a self-pitying whine that grates after the first few lines and simply doesn't let-up. It is thoroughly professional, mainstream, mature comics writing then.

#1 however is the 'alternative' offering, and much more to my particular taste. It shares the angsty emotion of #2, but tackles subject matters with greater imagination and verve in the form of three strips that prove agreeably brief and to-the-point - albeit visually long-winded perhaps. And unlike #2's comic strip appearance, here some effective and affecting sequences are in evidence. Indeed, in some of its more successful moments of visual/word chemistry it captures the kind of agreeably disturbing interruption to cognisance that David Lynch often achieves. And at times I was also reminded a little of recent art-house hit 'Donnie Darko'. (It's those pesky wabbits, you see!)

Certainly there's a sound talent at work here in the form of creator Paul O'Connell, and though his efforts are perhaps not always easily digested in the near-relentlessly sombre tones employed - nor indeed in the script/art detachment dictated by photo-strip resemblance - he still manages to produce some impressive work that oozes mood and polish. Not yet the finished article then, and often more a close-relative of the comic strip than actual comic strip, 'The Sound Of Drowning' #1 & 2 nonetheless deserve your attention. Yup, well worth a dunk, methinks!

A5, £1.60 - check availability at www.smallzone.co.uk

Scribblers Editions

2007-01-28T14:33:00.000Z

Posted on September 25, 2002

An imprint featuring short works and extended fictions in limited editions by writers who have been associated with the Scribblers creative writing group (London), Scribblers Editions are intended primarily for subscribers and collectors of chapbooks and other innovative publications. Not available through bookshops, here's your chance, gentle reader, to get your grubby maulers on some unique works...

The Infanta Of Castile, by Leonard Emerson

Written with appealing innocence and a wide-eyed clarity that captures a sense of excitement in the mundane, 'The Infanta Of Castile' is a kind of Footballers' Wives without the wives. It follows two likeable Millwall players (?) in their preparations for a match with Athletico Madrid, then presents us with dugout seats for the actual encounter - in which some football breaks out during the fight!
A short story of two halves, there exists an uneasy undercurrent that suggests the possibility of unsettling twist, but that instead continues to delivers Carry On farce. Still, that farce is often hilarious, and as a light read, where little really is implied and everything spelt out, and where its characters laugh uproariously, have mischievous grins, and fall into fountains with a loud splash, it's thoroughly engaging.
At the end of the day, maybe it's a couple of points dropped, but an entertaining score-draw nonetheless! Well worked, and a definite crowd-pleaser. One certainly worth tackling!

An Open Letter To J.K. Rowling From You-Know-Who, by M.J. Weller

This is a slight offering, which attains a considerable weight through the space and production afforded it. And curiously, as a result, becomes less a work which functions as a piece of writing, and more a kind of collectable objet d'art.
Weller, as ever, writes with seductive authority, again embroidering his work with a niggling sense that beneath the surface lies some meticulously researched contra-history to which he alone has access. And again his concerns are for the crass commercialism that hijacks all that is popular in our society, and indeed, that blunts our ability to discern between popular and commercial. Unfortunately, in spite of some deftly clever, cleverly bitter writing, things feel amiss: ultimately, An Open Letter is little more than an amusement; a polished novelty item that JK herself might delight close friends with during black-tie dinner parties at the castle. And ironically, the thing smacks of an odd commercialism-by-association - as if it too is simply yet another spin-off.
A flawed production then, with coffee table satire, where the charmingly ridiculous form taken by the ridicule seems to dilute the worth it possesses. (But good god, don't take my word for it! I think about tits mostly - and not always of the female variety!)

The Community Of Mermaids, by Kelly McKain

A story powered by impatient ambition, this. Rather than take one flash of wisdom and weave a parable about it - utilising a show, don't tell strategy - wise words are strobed throughout this New Age stress-management; the effect of which leaves this reader blind to its actual purpose. But that doesn't matter, because there is nothing to learn - I need only remember what I already know. And I already know everything, because I am everything!

Written with irritating fragility, but with impressive descriptive nuance, Mermaids chronicles the encounters of the disillusioned Stephanie with a sisterhood of the sea. It's an enchanting enough tale that succeeds in capturing a sense of dream-like obliqueness, but the neediness of the protagonist is mirrored in the neediness of a writer desperate for meaning. As a result, Mermaids is a tale peppered with vague suggestions of worth and depth, but no concrete proof. It's all just that bit too wishy-washy. (For me.)
Still, though not one for the cynically depressed, those who go barefoot in the steps of the Taoists, and who sit comfortably within their skin, will no doubt find renewed comfort in the company of Mermaids.

Tile, by Frank Goodman

It's accepted fact that the most satisfying stories are those with the human condition at their heart - Goodman does nothing here to contradict this assertion. In fact, so convincing is his portrayal of the female protagonist that one suspects he may possibly have gone the Roman a clef route.
A well crafted tale, this, about a young woman's return 'home' from a period of disenchantment, self-loathing and abandoned hope. Particularly affecting is the ease and economy with which a sense of displacement is captured, and the dynamics of an uneasy mother/daughter relationship is revealed through subtle exchanges, wonderfully judged. It's a resonant story with which we can all empathise, touching as it does on the struggle for meaning, a niggling awareness of the threat of ennui as the motivation for most activity, and the inclination to embrace the existentialist state of not being in an effort to avoid emotional hurt.
Though it provides no new insight, and though there is little relief from its sombre, hushed tones and suspect punctuation, Tile is an involving, intimate read that captures well a grappling with depression-induced distortion of perspective, and really only falters in its abrupt, quick-fix ending. Much like life then, not wholly satisfying, but what the fuck can you do?

The Infanta Of Castile - £3; An Open Letter To JK Rowling - £2; The Community Of Mermaids - £2.50; Tile - £2.50. No post and packing charges. Check availability at www.thescribblers.co.uk

Naked Lunch #1

2007-01-28T14:30:00.000Z

Posted on September 15, 2002

There's a startling courage and confidence about recent developments in the Irish comics scene; a focus and belief reflected in production values that elevate publications above small press status and into the realms of 'independent'. But, impressive as this trend is, quality presentation without quality content can easily be dismissed as pretentious posturing, and beneath the elaborate bows and expensive wrapping-paper may lurk little more than a pair of Marks & Spencer socks. However, this has not been the case with the sudden Irish explosion. Toenail Clippings, Mbleh! and Ructions have each offered content worthy of their professional trappings, and now Robert Curley's Naked Lunch delivers with equal skill; no socks in sight.

Opening strip, 'Beating The Rap' by James Mason and Stephen Mooney, is a John Constantine-inspired detective story, faultlessly scripted and competently illustrated, but with a breathless pacing that, though demonstrates an impressively economic story-telling know-how, leaves little opportunity for one to find a foothold in its world of other-worlds.
'Cookie Corral' by Dave Smith is the more satisfying read with seductive pace and subtle character-driven humour. European in flavour, and cartooned with disarming finesse, it manages to emanate an eccentric warmth and tantalising Zen-like message.
'Duplicitous' by Murra Mac Rory and Stephen Thompson ends the anthology in similar fashion to its beginning: accomplished scripting, lovely art (shades of Fabry's 'Bricktop' here), but again a pacing that effects the reader's sense of involvement - too much 'telling', too little 'showing'. This one mixes The Thomas Crown Affair with Mission Impossible to appealing consequence, but ends abruptly with weak twist.

Despite the counter-culture associations of its title, Naked Lunch certainly offers greater mainstream consideration than those alternative-effected contemporaries listed above. Its short stories are of the A1 ilk: adroitly crafted tales, at times overly ambitious in confined space, but always entertaining. And though occasional computer lettering typos might betray a small press imperfection, NL is 'independent' in production, content and attitude. For sure, me hopes this is one lunch that will be repeating.

US size, 28 glossy pages, €3 - available from Atomic Diner, 2 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Email robatomicdiner@eircom.net

More Than We Seem #6

2007-01-28T14:22:00.000Z

Posted on August 15, 2002

A comic with a definite swagger, this; and fine wordsmithery, and stylish illustration, and a production and attitude that demand to be taken seriously. It's frustrating then the fact that it provides impenetrable work that casts the casual reader in role of detached gate-crasher, is not remotely satisfying, and on this evidence, seems to lack any notion of the importance of focusing theme. For all its impressive craft and ambition, ultimately issue six simply has nothing to say.

The publication opens and closes with text-heavy pieces: the first a series of plodding descriptive passage; the last a plodding dialogue - and both back-dropped with superfluous collage of images. Nicely written, nicely designed, but no less a kind of onanism.
The main presentation, a Trojan strip, is less of a slog however; but with occasional disorientating panel layouts, with the utilisation of two art styles, with an inventive but disruptive balloon sequencing, and with the cold, mechanical presence of computer lettering, it provides twitchy, uncomfortable read that leaves one slightly irritated.

Though commendable to create work with a mature audience in mind, epilepsy sufferers beware: MTWS attempts to muster complexity through use of prelude, interlude, sub-plot, prologue, epilogue, purpleslog - at the expense of a stretch of actual story to involve both the casual and devoted reader alike. And of course, the irony is that there are obvious talents gathered here. But for the moment however - with this my first glimpse - More Than We Seem is less than the sum of its parts. The pieces are in places.

US size, 36 pages, £1.95 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Whatever #4

2007-01-28T14:20:00.000Z

Posted on August 13, 2002

On the surface, this is an impressive piece of comics work by creator Adam Jakes - a tale concentrated on lovable loonies of 'The Dream Team' ilk enjoying a day release from their hospital, all told with a competent scripting polish and boasting an artwork crammed with photo-referenced faces and figures, skilfully inked, and with a compositional know-how that makes insignificant the lack of background detail. With such obvious craft on offer then, it's regrettable that the publication presents a misguided and uninformed take on mental illness and those associated institutions.

Though undoubtedly well-meaning, there exists this niggling sense of unhelpful subtext, and of naive author incapable of discerning between the criminal institutionalised to suffer and the patient institutionalised because of suffering. The thing just lacks insight. Really, it's boyband promo masquerading as meaningful drama. It's 'girl power' disguised as feminism. It's a comic with an illustration of Davina McCaul on the cover!!!

With a little more research - and subsequent adjustment of attitude - Whatever may just lose its romanticised view of mental illness and discover the substance and poignancy the work so desperately craves. Meanwhile, #4 anyway is a strictly shape-throwing exercise, for those who don't like their surfaces scratched. And that, unfortunately, is one massive audience.

US size, 32 pages, £1.95- available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Deshabille #1

2007-01-28T14:12:00.000Z

Posted on August 12, 2002

With Deshabille, creator Emma Connolly does indeed attain a state of partial undress, but shrouds herself in a puff of conjured strip vignettes that are captivating and disarming, and mysterious in the way that Mauretania Comics were always mysterious, with answers ever just on the tip of one's brain. Deceptively aimless yet deceptively ambitious, this reserved publication is embroidered with an ethereal idleness that just manages a fey sophistication when twee melancholy lurks with intent. Written and drawn to pass through you like an eidetic memory of childhood, Deshabille is the Bagpuss we all craved - where Professor Yaffle remained a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker, and where the mice knew no life other than that of mere ornaments on the mouse-organ.

20 A5 pages, £1 - available from www.smallzone.co.uk

Matter #1

2007-01-28T14:05:00.000Z

Posted on July 21, 2002

Prolific cartoonist Philip Barrett escapes through A Crack In The Shell to produce this new title, Matter; and in doing so, breaks from the confines of his usual newspaper-style strip and finds breathing space in the featured twenty-six pager, A Stagnant Pool.

A mundane tale this, about going through the motions in a kind of detached shock; that sense one gets of merely observing the life-on-automatic dealt you, little realising that increased emotional involvement (with the aid of Prozac) is the yearned-for panacea.
Owing much to the influence of Eddie Campbell and Adrian Tomine, A Stagnant Pool takes us through one night/morning in the life of a protagonist struggling to shake that 'left behind' feeling provided by a best friend now 'moved on'. Told with intimacy in first-person narrative and crafted with an informed judgement throughout, we are treated to a thoroughly engrossing, irresistible read that succeeds with deceptively casual ease in utilising those mechanisms of the strip-form required for affected response.

Expertly paced, modestly ambitious, and drawn-almost-as-an-after-thought with such uncluttered confidence as to make me wince, Matter is nothing you've not seen before (wha'?), but never-the-less is another flawlessly realised patch in the funny/sad, understated and poignant patchwork of resonant material with which we forlorn folk like to wipe the red stuff from our opened wrists.

32 A5 pages, €2 / £1.60 / $3.00 (postage included) - available from www.blackshapes.com

Mbleh! #1

2007-01-28T14:04:00.000Z

Posted on July 20, 2002

Toenail Clippings contributor Bob Byrne goes solo with this impressively produced effort, mixing Renee French with 'Ed The Happy Clown', Al Columbia with early 'Jimmy Corrigan', but choosing to infuse the work with a kind of MTV madcap rather than any insightful, meditative element. As a result, Mbleh! lacks substance and composure, but provides lively read.

Two strips account for much of the content of this first issue: Clam Land, an energetic, fluid and frantic tale told with firm grasp of sequentialism, but with some silly, laboured dialogue; and Adictos, an earnestly dull affair with power fantasy undertones that, punctuated with tiresome pockets of exposition which disrupt narrative flow, is lamentably confused and fails dramatically on the story-telling front. In fairness, the latter is probably an early development effort, and on the positive side serves to highlight the strengths of the strips that surround it.
Speaking of which...these shorter efforts provide the more affecting moments in the form of the agreeably disturbing Fugue 1, the dippy Hot Coffee, and the just plain funny Ace That Interview, Airport Court and Freaky Facts. Most hilarious moment however comes with the first panel of the opening strip - Grated Cheese - in which a man in a supermarket examines a packet he has just plucked from a shelf. Incredulity verges on indignation as he exclaims 'Wuh? You can buy grated cheese?!' Priceless!

Gratuitously unpleasant at times (the rape-droid of Fugue 2 in particular), Mbleh! often strikes a hollow note and flatlines due to an absence of charm, but succeeds in providing a diverting entertainment hued with defective personality. The computer-enhanced artwork offers some neat, ambitious tricks reminiscent of Columbia and Ware, but more importantly provides energy to an otherwise stiff cartooning style. All-in-all then, a sound first issue that hopefully will be proceeded by a second.

US size, 36 pages, $2.95 / €3 - available from www.clamnuts.com

Albedo One #25

2007-01-28T14:03:00.000Z

Posted on July 11, 2002

The longest running Irish magazine of speculative fiction, Albedo One is in its tenth year of publication, but only on its twenty-fifth issue. Not exactly prolific then, but while other publishers strain to adhere to self-imposed deadlines, Albedo One embraces a publishing schedule dictated by its gradual accumulation of quality material - material that mixes first time writers with established professionals, and that demands an audience. Three European Science Fiction Society Awards suggest a winning approach.

This current issue, though slightly uneven, continues the Albedo One standard of well-crafted, oddly cosy science fiction and horror short stories.
Opening proceedings is Elvis Is Dead, a likeable piece of sci-fi tinged with hard-boiled detective work and throw-away humour. Elvis clones are dropping like flies and underworld kingpin Elvis Stradivarius turns to investigator Lamar for assistance; his only lead: the popular recreational drug Tetra Isopropyl Ketamine, aka 'the kid'. Not economically written, the fact that the story seems to lack a defining draft adds to its charm. A delusional and dissociative closing paragraph - which focuses theme - suggests a damn fine tale has been told, but in truth this one is no more than agreeably diverting.
One Last Look At A Half-Moon offers a thoroughly sound grasp of storytelling and entertaining read, and succeeded in engaging this reader. In the virtual office, gridlock meets broadband, and multi-tasking as applied to a single brain driving a subs-bench of virtual bodies is already in operation and resulting in improved financial performance for one particular company. The Tax Department smell a virtual rat...
The Olivia Reunion Party continues the multiplicity thread, but from a more profoundly emotional source. However, only in retrospect is it an affecting tale - with one's perceptions upended due to twist ending, only then does the story actually read other than one of bickering sisters, albeit with cryptic undertones. Still, a fine idea (which I won't reveal), though resembling less a genre short story than an under-developed stage play.
Finally, The Barber is a flawless piece of horror prose, well crafted and technically impressive, which tells of a young man's descent into madness via the old tools-of-the-trade route. A sound piece of writing, but pretty routine, sterile stuff, really.

Also on offer this issue: a lively interview with sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson, a comic strip, and eleven pages of in-depth book reviews. And the whole shebang comes neatly designed, pristinely printed in black and white A4 format, and comprises 48 type-packed pages. An accumulation well worth burying your head in, methinks!

48 A4 pages, £3 – available from www.albedo1.com

A Crack In The Shell #3

2007-01-28T14:02:00.000Z

Posted on June 27, 2002

The melancholic cover illustration and subdued, no-nonsense logo/title design of this publication offer perfect indication of the tone and mood of the issue. Indeed, thematically the weight with which the previous Cracks have been imbued is maintained, and that sense of there being meaning lurking beneath the surface always present. I guess, as with previous issues, it's all about the frustration prompted by passivity, and the resentment that festers behind such assertive-lacking behaviour.

A collection of 'Wage Slave' strips account for much of this issue's content and continue with last issue's diluted themes of existentialism and helplessness in the face of societal expectation and enforced routine played out by a once cuddly toy bear, now wearied with the cynicism of experience and a work/drink prompted lethargy. Ranging in length from three-panel to fourteen-page, in the main they provide sound amusement, at times contain some absolutely lovely, neat artwork, and, with occasional shifts in rhythm, often prove strangely affecting. That said, the longer, main presentation 'Wage Slave', though spot-on in its observations, pales in comparison to the shorter, punchier efforts. Lacking a tightness in its scripting and in its design, it reads slightly sloppy, looks slightly sloppy, and the search for poignancy toward story's end seems quite laboured. It's still a worthwhile effort, mind - the illustration is of a consistently sound quality, and the message of the piece flies in the face of current self-help book favourite 'Who Moved My Cheese': ultimately change simply affects environment - no matter the hue, we simply substitute one stagnation for another.
Also on offer: 'Danny and Clare', an oddity of a short story that had me feeling lost and abandoned throughout. Similar to the experience of reading two pages ripped from the first draft of a novel-in-progress, it fails to read well, lacks direction and form, but provides good characterisation and dialogue that seems to ring true. More impressive though is the Charles Burns inkiness of the accompanying illustrations - some lovely stuff.

So, all-in-all a very worthwhile issue then that, as the 'How To' books say, successfully draws parallels between the particular and the universal, and is peopled with a character with whom we may share no detail, but with whom we connect on an emotional level.

24 A5 pages, £1 – check availability at www.blackshapes.com

The Scribblers: Thursday Nights

2007-01-28T13:51:00.000Z

Posted on November 27, 2001

London writing group The Scribblers meet weekly on a Thursday night to encourage continued devotion to the productivity of creative thinking. This collection provides illustration of their endeavour, and proves that sound work indeed emanates from this huddle of harvesters.

Mike Weller's 'The Origin Story of The Invincibles' opens proceedings and offers seductive taste of both the environment and the musicality of his intoxicating 'Space Opera' tome. A short, promotional piece, really, it non-the-less succeeds in engaging that part of the brain responsible for eidetic memory and pleasure. My spine still hums to its rhythms.
Two delightful reminisces of cinema-obsessed youth, presented by Leslie Reeves, find voice through 'In Search of Rosebud' - wherein a nostalgic object succeeds in easing a sense of abandonment - and 'A Look Back at a First Love' - starring Ray Milland and Betty Hutton, with Dorothy Lamour, Joan Caulfield and Alan Ladd in support roles. Neither in Cinemascope nor glorious Technicolor, these memories still prove irresistible viewing.
In 'Another Evening With Sally Nearby', Frank Goodman has penned an enjoyable if frustratingly complex little tale that tells of its indecisive protagonist's sudden decision to choose to love being loved when confronted with the abrupt loss of an obsessed admirer's affections. It perhaps lacks the satisfaction of a resolution that focuses theme; but then, however men might attempt to attach logic to the emotion of love, it is ultimately beyond reason. Thought provoking stuff, this.
Goodman's second offering, 'It's a Spring Day, Sure', employs a flawed but diverting notion of the afterlife - as prompted by Christian philosophy - to write of the post-death re-uniting of young lovers. Amid romantic overtones and a kind of Robert Cummings maudlin, the tale comfortably succeeds in maintaining reader interest.
Poetry follows. 'Recovery' by Sharon Willocks, and two new poems from Kelly McKain - 'Holding on for Harriet' and 'Rosie's Book' - read with that lilting cadence one expects of poetry but often fails to find. Both poets deliver light-hearted, cipher-less fare, fluid and uncluttered. Technically conventional perhaps, but oh-so-charming.
Leonard Emerson's short story 'The Longing of Mr Bexleyheath' occupies the next seventeen pages and proves worthy of the space. Last of the Summer Wine trickles toward Blue Velvet in this humorous, engrossing tale of humdrum lives impacted by a sexual perversion. Polythene bags of pubic hair, salivations over ripe young breasts, a butcher with more meat than he can handle - what more could one ask for? Damn good stuff, this.
John Coventon offers three subdued children's stories told with Enid Blyton clarity and designed not to over-whelm but to distract five to seven year olds. In the darkened attic of her house Eleanor uncovers the mystery behind her magical red boots - there are white witches involved, spells cast, and the surprise assistance of a talking seagull. Later, powered by these red boots, Eleanor cleans her friend's bedroom, then falls asleep.

A collection of Coventon's 'Thoughts Of/On...' series of writings impressively completes this volume with strangely menacing work that drifts from poetic verse to lyrical prose. The dark 'Clue' is especially affecting, but all pieces prompt some semblance of unease, and prove refreshingly cynical in tone. (Or perhaps I'm just projecting!)

Often plagued with typos beyond the 'added character' excuse, and employing a page-numbering that fades then disappears completely, The Scribblers: Thursday Nights is never-the-less a thoroughly enjoyable production that requires little effort to drift through. Both inspiring and engaging, it provides an eclectic mix that never disappoints.

58 A5 pages – check availability at www.thescribblers.co.uk